


Autumn's Fruit Bitter and Sweet

by Snowgrouse



Series: Of Roses Unfurling [12]
Category: Original Work, Thief of Bagdad (1940), كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة | Kitaab 'alf layla wa-layla | One Thousand and One Nights
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Fisting, Anal Sex, Anal Sex (female receiving), Anal toys, Anal-Oral Sex, Androgynous male character, Ass to Mouth, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Avenged Sexual Assault, BBW, BDSM, Beard-pulling, Big Cocks, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, Bondage, Brother/Brother Incest, Brotherly Love, Buttplugs, Caning, Children, Cock Bondage, Comeshitting, Cooking, Cuddling, Cunnilingus, Curvaceous Female Character(s), Curvy Fetish, Dark Het, Dirty Talk, Discipline, Discussion of Abortion, Dominant Female Character, Dominant Male Character, Douchebag Put In His Place, Emergency Contraception As Love, Enemas, Engineering, Established Relationship, Exhibitionism, F/F, F/M, Face-Sitting, Family Fluff, Fantasy, Felching, Fellatio, Femdom, Feminist Themes, Femslash, Forced Submission, Foursome - F/F/M/M, Gen in early chapters, Genital Shaving, Genital Torture, Group Sex, Hair-pulling, Hard BDSM, Heroine/Villain, Het and Femslash, Het and Slash, Heterosexual Anal Fisting (male receiving), Heterosexual Anal Sex (female receiving), Heterosexual Anal Sex (male receiving), Historical, Historical Accuracy, Historical Inaccuracy, In-law Incest, Incest, Invisible sex, Large Breasts, Lingerie, M/M, Magic as sex aid, Married Couple, Masturbation, Medieval Medicine, Middle Ages, Motherhood, Multi, Muslim Character(s), Nipple Clamps, OC played by Basil Rathbone (Fadl), OC played by Bonita Granville (Zainab), Older Man/Younger Woman, Open Relationships, Orgasm Delay, Orgy, POV Bisexual Character, PWP, Pagan Character(s), Period-Typical Racism, Polyamory, Prostate Milking, Queer Het, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Revenge, Rimming, Romance, Rough Sex, Sexual Harassment, Slash, Soul Bond, Submissive Female Character, Submissive Male Character, Subspace, Telepathic Bondage, Telepathic Sex, Telepathy, Tenderness, The Golden Age of Islam, The Thousand And One Nights - Freeform, Vaginal Fingering, Veidtbone - Freeform, Voyeurism, Whipping, ass to other person's mouth, brief descriptions of violence, cock and ball torture, costume porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-12 16:02:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 46,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7112743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowgrouse/pseuds/Snowgrouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is the eve of Mehregan: both Fadl and Zainab arrive to visit Jaffar and Yassamin for the feast. Erotic tension crackles between them like lightning; however, in his drunken lust, Fadl behaves most atrociously. Yassamin and Zainab set out to teach him a lesson in humility--and respect for women.</p><p>***</p><p><i>It'll be a miracle if we survive tonight without it all degenerating into an orgy,</i> Jaffar thinks at Yassamin.</p><p>Yassamin giggles at him drunkenly. <i>You know, I'm not so sure I would mind.</i></p><p>He rolls his eyes. <i>My God. It's contagious!</i> "Behave yourself, woman," he mutters, even if she can see a spark in his eyes, the illicit excitement awakening in him at the prospect.</p><p>"Ooh, I don't know," Fadl purrs, devouring Zainab with his eyes. "I like a woman who's not afraid to be a little... scandalous. I've spent so much time with the pagans, methinks; I must confess I find a certain charm in the ways of the barbarian female."</p><p>Zainab bursts into rich laughter. "You were yourself pagans but a few generations ago, Barmakid. I heard tell it was the custom among you for brothers to share but the one wife," she says pointedly, twirling a golden lock of hair between her plump little fingers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Re-edited here and there for typos in March 2018.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those of you who are here just for teh pr0nz, despair not over the chapters gen: the sexy sex begins in Chapter 4, and the orgy in Chapter 5.
> 
> The type of garden platform featured in the fic looks like one of [these.](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/145819408128/dining-platforms-persian-style)
> 
> An illustration of Jaffar and the kiddoes in the kitchen [here.](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/143221718293/guess-what-im-2500-words-into-roses-11-and-none) :3

***

How sad, a heart that does not know how to love,  
That does not know what it is to be drunk with love.  
If you are not in love, how can you enjoy  
The blinding light of the sun,  
The soft light of the moon? 

-Omar Khayyam

***

"Crispy rice! Crispy rice!" Salsabil and Anwar cry out in unison as they rush into the kitchen from underneath Zahra's arm.

"I am so sorry, master," Zahra groans and wipes sweat from her brow. "They caught me unawares." She had just been pulling bread out of the tannur with a long peel, and had not been able to set it down quick enough to stop the children from storming in. 

For Jaffar had forbidden the children from coming into the kitchen whenever he was engrossed in the preparation of larger, more complex meals--some of them involved procedures as demanding as any alchemical experiment--but trust them to rush in the moment he and Zahra had turned their backs!

And it is no wonder. The scents of the kitchen are heavenly tonight, as Jaffar and Zahra prepare sweet delicacies for Mehregan: marzipans flavoured with flower extracts, sweet and crisp pastries filled with herbs and spices, rich syrups and jellies from this autumn's fresh fruit.

"It's all right, Zahra," Jaffar sighs and wipes the knife he's been using to chop up a veritable mountain of herbs. "Even Fadl's Turks would not be able to stop these two devils when they set their minds on something." That's what he gets for marrying a Babylonian demoness, he thinks; yet, he loves both little fiends dearly. "What is it that you want, my little imps?" he asks, ruffling both little heads with his herb-flecked hands, exactly because he knows that will send the children spluttering and groaning, like they do now. 

"Crispy rice!" Anwar cries, shaking coriander out of his shoulder-length hair like a horse tosses its mane.

"Tie your hair up when you're in the kitchen!" Salsabil says and starts rummaging around in her pockets for pieces of string. She always carries useful things like these in her pockets; it's for her experiments, she says, having inherited her father's engineering nature. And lately, she has been obsessed with binding things. For this, she had pleaded for her parents to give her a ball of string and a pair of scissors to carry about herself, so that she could keep on conducting these experiments without always having to fetch them from the harem. Yassamin, however, had refused to give a six-year-old child a pair of scissors to run around with, no matter how precocious the child, so they had reached a compromise: now, Salsabil carries about herself a wide selection of pieces of string, cut to different lengths for different purposes.

Finally, she finds one long enough to tie her brother's hair back with, Anwar so used to this kind of thing that he does not even put up a fight. "There," Salsabil says and lets go of his ponytail. "I don't want your hair in my crispy rice."

"Ah, but we haven't started on the rice yet," Jaffar says. "Sweets and pastries first, meats and heavy stews last, and with _them,_ the rice." He looks at Salsabil and then Anwar. "And why do we do that, do you know?" 

For any civilised courtier, male or female, should be well-versed in all the arts and sciences, including the culinary ones; a prince is no prince and a princess is no princess if they don't know at least ten complex recipes to entertain high-born guests with. And to know cuisine is to know medicine, Jaffar's own tutors had told him as a child: it's how they had started him on the path to knowledge about the human body and its inner workings, and this is what he means to do with his own children as well.

Salsabil looks at the bunch of coriander Jaffar is still holding in one hand, then at his face. "Is this the humours again? That first you should start with... light things, so that the stomach wakes up?"

Jaffar sets down the coriander and wipes his hands on a towel. "That's partially correct. But that's the eating, not the cooking. Zahra, you are the expert pastry chef. You tell them," Jaffar says as he rearranges things on his counter, making sure anything sharp or fragile is well out of the children's reach.

"Well," Zahra says, covering the last of the flatbreads with a well-steamed cloth, leaving them on the side of the oven to stay warm. "You know how the house smells all over after we have used a lot of cardamom or asafoetida, don't you? And if we have been preparing organ meats? Or those fancy perfumed treats your aunts and uncles are so fond of--yes, that's right," Zahra laughs as Anwar sticks his tongue out in disgust. "Uncle Fadl's stinky meatballs, now you remember. You begin by greasing the whole pot with the musk and the ambergris mixed into butter, then fry the spices in them, and then add the rest of the ingredients. And that will stink up the pots and the pans for a long while, no matter how well you scrub them. So it's best to do the baking and the desserts first, so that they will not take upon the scents of the richer foods and flavourings. You wouldn't want your marzipan to smell of fish-liver, now would you?"

Salsabil wrinkles her nose. "Ick!"

Jaffar laughs. "Exactly; ick."

"So when _do_ we get to the crispy rice?" Anwar asks, a little forlorn.

"An hour or two," Jaffar says. "I promise to save you the best parts. But in the meantime, can you remember what we call that type of crispy rice, my little friends?" Jaffar asks the children. "The specific name for it, the sort that's caramelised at the bottom of the pot?" He makes a rolling, scooping motion with his hand. "You will have to know these things when you grow up. When Fadl and I were young, the Caliph asked us to take part in cooking competitions, and the competition was fierce. Perhaps, one day, you'll be asked to take part in a competition, too, and you know they'd laugh you out of the room if you did not even know the proper names for different types of rice." He leans back against the counter; the children are gazing at him with such serious looks on their little faces that now, Jaffar knows he has their full attention. "So. Tell me. What is the crispy rice called?" 

When Anwar still thinks, Salsabil makes to answer, but Jaffar raises his hand to stop her. "I know _you_ know what it's called, Salsabil; don't tell him." Unlike his bookworm of a sister, Anwar's been slacking in his lessons, so Jaffar has been trying to teach him through example instead. "We talked about this yesterday, Anwar, remember?"

Anwar looks around, frowning. Then, finally, his face brightens. "Tahdig!"

"Well done!" Jaffar cries and picks Anwar up, kissing him and spinning him around, lifting him high into the air. "You'll get served the crispiest sort tonight."

"That's unfair!" Salsabil sulks as Jaffar sets Anwar down, looking like she is about to cry. "I knew it all along, but he had to think harder."

For that, Jaffar picks up Salsabil, too, also with a kiss, lifting her even higher with a mighty cry, spinning her around and around until she shrieks, until they are both dizzy. Her plaits take down some of the herbs hung from the ceiling, and soon Jaffar and the children are spitting five different types of mint from their mouths, spluttering and laughing. 

"I promise--" Jaffar says and spits another mint leaf out, "I promise that you'll get to split the crispiest parts. There, is that fair enough for you?"

"I think you all need to get out of my kitchen," Zahra says and shakes her head, picking up whatever she can salvage from the herbs. "Now look what you've done."

But at that, Jaffar lifts Zahra up and spins her, too--only a few inches from the ground, as she is heavier than Jaffar himself--and plants a big, wet kiss onto her mouth. "There! Accept my apologies."

"Master!" Zahra says, staggering when Jaffar lets her go; even from underneath the dark hue of her skin, Jaffar can tell she is flushed, now smiling like a flustered maiden. "You've never--"

"Come, little ones," Jaffar laughs, for he is in a good mood tonight, ready to kiss the whole world should it come to that. "Let's go before she chases us out with a saucepan," he says and winks at Zahra, taking the children by the hand.

***

"What _have_ you been doing with Zahra?" Yassamin asks Jaffar when they finally sit down to dine in the garden on one of the large wooden platforms built for picnicking. Zahra and the other servants have just retreated beyond the apricot trees, and the children are too busy fighting over the tahdig to pay attention to their parents. 

Jaffar shrugs and sprinkles some sumac and olive oil onto a flatbread, then hands it to Yassamin. "I just gave her a kiss to thank her for all her hard work, that's all."

Yassamin shakes her head. It's scandalous enough that Jaffar should associate so freely with freedwomen, but touching them at will as well, women not his wives or slaves? There are reasons why such things are forbidden. "That you should forget about your attractiveness, husband! She's been walking around in this dreamy haze--you know, I wouldn't be surprised if our jade friend went missing at this rate. Have you planned to do anything about it?"

Jaffar tilts his head. "Well, she is not unattractive." He has known Zahra for as long as he has known Yassamin; she had been one of the handmaidens he had purchased for Yassamin as a wedding present, the same age as Yassamin herself. "But were she to fall in love with me--"

"You started it!"

"I wouldn't want us to lose the crown jewel of our staff, should she begin to hate me for some reason or another, or grow jealous of you," he mumbles and looks at his knees, only now starting to realise the potential consequences of his actions. They both know how it is--when masters tire of their female slaves, they sell them on. But Zahra is no longer a slave: upon their move to Samarkand, Jaffar and Yassamin had manumitted all their slaves and only the most loyal of them had joined them in their exile, now as paid servants. And Zahra deserves more than this for her service, having risen in the ranks from handmaiden to trusted housekeeper in but a few years' time: she is a pious woman, kind and skilled, endlessly patient with Jaffar's quirks and the children's antics. 

"It's odd," Yassamin says and sips from her bowl of sugar-milk. "She has never asked me to let her marry, either. At first, I thought she was one of Halima's mistresses, but she did not like Halima any more than I did."

"You should ask if she has had any young men in mind," Jaffar says, lost in thought. But the people here are terrible about blacks; they should find her another man of her hue so that he would not think less of her. And Zahra, having grown up at court, would not be happy with anyone below her own station; she deserves a husband civilised. Yet here in Samarkand, most black freedmen are of a lower class, working as tanners, washers; they're the lowest of the low, not being allowed to advance the way anyone--regardless of colour--could do in Baghdad, were they determined enough. The only refined black men he knows here are the eunuchs serving at Mohammad's court, and he presumes Zahra would rather marry a man intact. Yes, in Baghdad, the situation would be different, the court full of people of all colours in even the highest of classes; but here, Zahra is a lone dark princess without a prince to match. If only old Masrur and his family had not been put to death by Harun; not a week goes by that Jaffar does not miss the man who had been his best friend growing up. Even Masrur's son would be in his thirties, now; God, how time flies--

But it is then that his reverie is pierced by a despairing shriek.

"Zumurrud!" Anwar screams at the cat as she pats at his plate. But it's too late: in a flash, Zumurrud has snatched a big piece of roast chicken-skin--Anwar's favourite--from his plate and dashed off to savour it in private. 

Anwar's eyes fill with tears. "I waited for that chicken skin all day!"

"But what about your crispy rice?" Jaffar asks and points to it. "Look, I got you the best part."

"Salsabil, can you give your brother some of your chicken skin?" Yassamin asks, diplomatically. "You have plenty."

"Why is it always me?" Salsabil cries, deeply upset. "Why is it that _I_ always have to help Anwar, just because he's _stupid?_ " she yells right in his face, and now Anwar bursts into hopeless sobs. Uncaring of her brother's feelings, Salsabil--who has a point, it must be said--moves her plate further away from Anwar, pointedly. "It's always 'Salsabil, give your brother this, give your brother that,'" she shouts. "Why is it that _he_ never has to share his things with me? Why is it never 'Anwar, give Salsabil that?'" she rages, tears filling her eyes now as well, her little frame shaking with anger.

"That's not true! You always steal my swords and shields!" Anwar wails. "And you break them!"

"Children, children!" Jaffar says, spreading his hands in a placating gesture. "It is supposed to be the feast of friendship tomorrow! A feast of kindness, of brotherhood!" 

But it is to no avail: Anwar throws himself down on the platform in a full hysterical fit, curling up on his side with his sobs, while Salsabil weeps and pounds the platform with her fists so hard that the entire structure creaks.

Yassamin steps off the platform and calls out in the direction of the kitchen. "Zahra? Is there any more chicken left?"

"I'm afraid that's all we have, mistress," Zahra says. "We roasted six. Two for you and two for the master, one for each child."

"You didn't ask them to make more?" Yassamin asks Jaffar, astounded. "That's only one little pullet for each child. You should have had them roast at least two!"

"What, now it's _my_ fault?" Jaffar blurts. "It's _you_ who insist on letting the cats wander about everywhere! Even if they steal the food from your children's mouths!"

"Mistress, I could go to the night market and get something," Zahra offers. 

"No, it's too late;" Yassamin says and pinches her brow. "Get a few more birds in tomorrow. But make sure that the cats are fed and kept away from the banqueting areas. Lock them up in the cellar if needs be, but this must _not_ happen tomorrow, not with all the guests in attendance!"

"I understand, mistr--" but now, Zahra is interrupted by little Anwar toddling over to her and clinging to her legs, weeping into her apron. 

"Take me away, Zahra. You're-you're my only friend," Anwar stutters, sobbing hopelessly. "Mother hates me, Salsabil hates me, and Father does not care! He never tells them off for it, so he must hate me as well!"

There is a moment of silence, and within it, even if he is not psychically linked with her, Jaffar can hear Yassamin's heart breaking.

"Now, that's not true," Zahra says, clearly embarrassed, trying to extricate Anwar. "Come, Anwar. To your mother, you go."

But Anwar stays. Now, Jaffar feels Yassamin's pain as his own, and even as Salsabil climbs into his lap, he is stiff from Yassamin's anguish, hurt from it, his body as cold as stone. He knows how often Yassamin worries that she is neglecting the children, and it is the most awful thing for him to see her clenching her fists, standing there alone in the courtyard, between the platform and her son now clinging to his nursemaid's feet. In this very moment, Yassamin's nightmares become realities: she has always feared that the children do prefer Zahra and think of her as their true mother. What more proof could she have than this?

"Excuse me," Yassamin says and pulls her veil over her face, all the way down to her chest, then throws its end over her shoulder. "I am not feeling very well, and would retire early."

"Yassamin--" Jaffar says, reaching out for her with his hand, and his mind, too, with it. 

But she is not listening, deafened by her grief.

Jaffar stares at her retreating figure for a long while, her pink silks swallowed up by the darkness of the doorway and the corridor, and she is gone.

He feels something sticky against his lips. 

"Father?"

He looks down, and realises Salsabil is looking at him with worry in her eyes, projecting her emotions to him freely, even if she cannot yet tell he can read them. With her child's mind, with her engineer's mind, she, too, is looking for answers, looking to restore lost happiness. And she remembers what had made her father so happy earlier that day, hoping against hope that this magic word will help. 

Therefore, she lifts the best, the crispiest golden rice to her father's mouth.

"Tahdig?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more doodles illustrating the beginning and the end of the chapter, featuring Zahra, [here.](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/145704948628/and-now-for-some-worksafe-doodles-for-once-some)


	2. Chapter 2

***

**Later that evening**

***

"Go away!" Yassamin shouts when she hears the bedroom door creaking. Her pillow is smeared black from her kohl, her voice is hoarse from her sobbing; she is nowhere near done with her weeping, nowhere near done with her sorrow, and would rather be left alone. 

Yet the door closes and the curtain before it rustles, indicating that someone has come in; now, Yassamin turns, raising herself up on her shoulders. "Jaffar, not tonight! Your prick cannot heal everything, no matter what you might think. If you don't go away now, I'm going to rip off your balls and feed them to the cats!"

"Mistress, it's me."

"Zahra?" 

"And cordial," Zahra says, peeking through the bedcurtains, bottle in hand; she sits down beside Yassamin on the bed. "I thought you might need it for sleep."

Yassamin wipes her eyes. "I need my children's love, not cordials," she murmurs, and does not care if she sounds unkind in her jealousy. It is her right to be loved by the children she bore, and now Zahra has taken that right from her.

 _Oh, but would you listen to yourself, Samin,_ she can hear her mother's voice scolding her: she is being terrible, while Zahra has done nothing wrong. Why, even now, Zahra is looking at her with eyes kind and patient, and Yassamin can only blame herself for her misery. 

"What happened today, Zahra... is that how much they hate me?" she asks, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

"They do not hate you, mistress," Zahra says, produces a handkerchief from somewhere and offers it to Yassamin; how she is always prepared for everything, Yassamin does not know. 

"You are much better at this," Yassamin sniffles as she takes the handkerchief from Zahra and wipes her face. "This running a household and raising children business. I am a pampered, spoiled princess who was never prepared for a life like this, the life of an ordinary woman."

Yet this is exactly the life she had wanted, imagined--no, even better than what she and Jaffar had imagined, had hoped for when they'd given up the throne. To not have to give up her children's upbringing to other women, to be able to be there for them as they grow up. Now, their household is so small that they barely observe purdah, even; Yassamin has already told Jaffar she does not want Anwar to be taken away from the harem when he reaches puberty, wanting him to grow up together with both women and men. Only Jaffar and three of his manservants--all of them eunuchs by birth or by knife--occupy what's supposed to be the men's side of the house; the harem side houses only Yassamin and the children, Zahra and two other maids. In practice, everyone goes about freely, the women veilless unless in the presence of strangers; they even share the same room for the major prayers.

Yet Yassamin wonders if she has not spent too much time in her rooms, the library, the underground workshop; she tells Zahra this. And that perhaps, had she been better at cooking, she could have won the children's hearts the way Zahra's done with her wheat cakes and her crisp, luscious pastries. "But I can't even make a sorbet without setting it on fire," she now blurts, and this makes her burst into tears once more. 

"Come, now, mistress," Zahra says and comes to hold her close, hugging Yassamin until she is weeping openly against her shoulder. Oh, but even Zahra's shirt smells wonderfully of cooking, of motherhood, of home; she is all solace, whereas Yassamin herself smells of but expensive perfumes, and now she cannot stop weeping.

"Perhaps Jaffar should marry you instead," Yassamin sobs through her tears, now having whipped herself onto the brink of hysteria. "Then, the children could have the mother they want. And if he desires you, well--"

"It was but a peck, but a moment's impulse, I am sure; that's what I took it as and do not hold it against him," Zahra says. "But, mistress, listen. The children do not hate you. Both of them grew grave and quiet the moment you left; in fact, I think little Anwar hates himself, now. You know what a serious little man he can be, and his sister seriouser still."

"Where's Jaffar?"

"It took the master and I a while to persuade the children to finish their dinner. He took them for a walk in the gardens and told me to come and check upon you." Zahra grins and rubs Yassamin's shoulder. "He said you would rip his balls off if he tried to come here himself."

Yassamin laughs weakly and blows her nose. "He is a wise man."

"He also recommended the cordial."

"I don't need the cordial," Yassamin says. "I have a terrible headache, and would not make it worse with those intoxicants he always fills it with. No, Zahra, no forbidden substances tonight; I would rather have some iced water, please."

Zahra leaves the bed for a moment; she goes to the door and calls out into the corridor. "Sonbol!" she claps her hands, and going by the groaning outside, she has woken up the elderly eunuch. "Fetch some water and ice from the yakhchal; your mistress is ailing. Hurry."

"He'll break his back carrying it," Yassamin murmurs.

Zahra ignores this and sits back on the bed so that she can rub Yassamin's shoulders. "He will do it because he loves you, like we all do."

"Apart from the children. What must I do to get them to warm to me?" Yassamin murmurs still. "It's Jaffar who always plays with them, invents them new games, builds them new toys," she says, despondent; "I barely get to play with them at all. Oh, another mother would have beaten respect into them already!" she huffs. "Am I being _too_ lenient with them, Zahra? Should I teach them through lessons harsher, so that they would not take having a mother for granted?"

But it is then that the ice-water arrives; even Sonbol looks upon Yassamin with pity, but disappears with haste, not wanting to get on the wrong side of her. That even her servants should now pity her--oh, but it's hopeless; she pinches the bridge of her nose and groans. 

"Say something, Zahra."

"I would have, madam, had you let me do so earlier," Zahra says, raising her eyebrow, but her voice is kind. "The master must already be telling the children how important you are to him, and reminding them of how important you are to them, too. I, for my part, will now make sure to remind them of their mother in turn. Should they come looking for comfort at my feet, I will send them to you instead, if you have not expressly forbidden it."

"Which means I will have to make more time for them, I suppose," Yassamin says, guilt now twisting in her heart like a knife. Perhaps she has spent too much time with her books indeed; after the children had been weaned, she had lost herself in reading through Jaffar's extensive library and working on his machines together with him, never having had a chance to explore these things as a maiden. To have grown up in a palace full of magical toys, but to have been forever forbidden from touching them--it's a miracle she was not driven mad, a child surrounded by toys she could not play with! 

Toys... now, there's a thought. And yet, immediately, that thought is subsumed by worry. 

"I would gladly let them join us in the workshop, but they are too young and I fear they would get hurt." Jaffar himself is gifted with an array of cuts and scrapes from his machines every week; Yassamin shudders at how some of the more elaborate automatons might maim a little child. "I suppose we could try and build child-proof ones, but it would be a challenge."

"Perhaps ones encased in animal skins, so that the little ones would be protected from the mechanisms?" Zahra says.

Yassamin leans her head on Zahra's shoulder, gesturing for her to stop rubbing her shoulders; she kisses Zahra's hand, the hand that has cared for her so well and so patiently. "That might be possible. I'm sorry for yelling at you, Zahra."

"You did not yell at me, mistress," she says, shaking her head, brushing Yassamin's hair aside from her cheeks. "Are you sure you do not want the cordial?"

"Quite sure, thank you." She plays with the embroideries on Zahra's cuff. "What am I to say to them when you send them to me? What am I to do, so that they won't think it a punishment, finding me so much more boring than you?"

Zahra laughs and pats Yassamin's back. "Let us make a list. I'll tell you what they love doing the most--although I do think you know already--and we'll make a plan for you to steal their little hearts. Come."

Yassamin laughs as she goes to pick up a penbox, a writing-board and a sheaf of paper. "It's as if I'm planning a seduction, but one chaste--that of my own children! Do I send secret missives next?" 

"Now, there's a thought--we could hide little pieces of paper around the house, have the children go look for them, and then make up an entire sentence of the words they've found. A good way of teaching them Scripture; that's what my mother used to do."

"But, Zahra, that's brilliant! What shall we try first? The creed?"

"Perfect!" Zahra says, smiling widely, with such sweet compassion in her eyes that Yassamin's heart melts. 

"I don't know what I'd do without you," Yassamin says and kisses Zahra's head. And as she starts writing out the words of the beloved verse, _La ilaha illa-llah,_ her face becomes lit by hope and faith, her mouth curling up in the most joyous of smiles.

***

**The next evening**

***

"Get up!" Salsabil whispers loudly in Anwar's ear, yet quiet enough to not wake up the maid sleeping in the neighbouring room, separated from the children's quarters only by a thick curtain. "We have to find out what's going on!"

"Mhh?" Anwar rubs sleep from his eyes. 

"Mother was so upset tonight, and she is still up. It's something to do with us, and I want to find out what it is," Salsabil says, agitated, speaking rapidly. "I know where Father keeps the crystal. It's in the library. Come on!"

"Can't we do this tomorrow? During the day?" Anwar huffs, yawning.

"No, silly," Salsabil says, looking around herself. "Father has just gone to her, and I want to listen. But not at Mother's door, or they'll catch us; we'll be safe if we watch them from the crystal instead. You know, just like Father watches Lady Zainab when she sells his dolls, so he can be sure she is not cheating money from him. People don't lie about you when they don't know you're there, and Mother would _never_ tell us what was wrong. But she will tell Father; I'm sure of it."

"What do you need me for?"

"In case of ghouls."

"Oh!" Anwar's face brightens. "I will bring my sword. You can trust me to protect you, my fair lady," he says, puffing his chest the way he's seen Fadl's Turkish archers do.

"No, no. I need you as a _distraction._ So they can eat you while I run away," Salsabil says, nodding seriously as she takes Anwar's wooden sword from him.

"Oh." Anwar's face falls. Yet, nevertheless, he slips his feet into his little slippers and follows his sister out into the corridor. Ghoul-fodder or no, he is always ready for an adventure. 

And it definitely feels like an adventure, the way they now sneak past the servants' quarters and down the long hallways, onwards towards the library. The moon is nearly full, so they don't need a lantern to guide their way; besides, Salsabil has investigated the house so thoroughly she knows it as well as the cats do, she says, knowing of secret passages and hiding-holes even the adults don't know exist. Or, then, she tells Anwar, they're places the adults have purposefully kept from the children, so that they wouldn't be getting into trouble.

"Are we in trouble?" Anwar whispers as they sneak past a fountain basin set into the wall, behind which lies a short, secret corridor that leads into the library. Jaffar always keeps its doors locked, so this is the only way they can enter without a key.

"Salsabil! Answer me," Anwar says as he wipes a cobweb from his face. " _Are_ we in trouble?"

"I think so, yes. I mean, we were in trouble even before now."

"Then why do you want us to get into even more trouble?" Anwar whispers loudly, looking around himself as they squeeze past the shelves. 

"Because I want to help Mother. You're the one who upset her the most."

"I didn't!" he cries as Salsabil takes a ladder and climbs up the shelf.

"You didn't mean to, but you still upset her. Now, help me. Hold these."

She hands Anwar four huge books, which Anwar immediately lets thunk down on the floor. After a brief rummage, she is finally able to pull out the large velvet pouch that had been hidden behind the books, and the large red crystal inside of it. She gives the crystal a polish with her sleeve and sets it down over the pile of books, propping it up with the velvet bag.

"Now," Salsabil says and arranges her shalwars neatly as she sits down in front of the crystal, Anwar squeezing in between the shelves to sit beside her. "Do you remember the right words to awaken it by?" she frowns. They have both been eavesdropping on Jaffar and have seen him bring the crystal to life numerous times.

Anwar taps the surface of the crystal. "I don't think it's a word. It's probably a sign he draws into the air."

"Or a word. Or a combination of both." What Father calls a _rune,_ Salsabil thinks, but she isn't sure enough to say the word out loud, in case she's wrong and it's a word that only sounds like it. Whatever it's called, it's akin to the strange, lilting language Lady Zainab sometimes speaks. How anything that sounds so funny can be magical, Salsabil does not know; but then again, djinn are supposed to have a strange sense of humour. 

"God will help if you pray sincerely enough," Anwar says, with full conviction. 

Salsabil is not so sure of this, but she doesn't tell Anwar this either; after all, it had been a holy verse that had made their mother so upset today. She and Anwar had been running around the house, looking for the pieces of paper she'd written the creed upon, and oh, the way she had smiled when they had put the words in the right order and recited the verse in pure, clear Arabic! But then Anwar had turned towards the kitchen and said he wanted Zahra to see it--and, well. Their mother had burst into tears, and neither of them could quite understand why. And she had continued to weep all day, had driven the children out, saying she did not want to infect them with her foul humours. 

But while Salsabil is still trying to understand the crystal's workings, Anwar murmurs out a holy verse, another: he sits as still as a statue, focused, with his hands cupped in prayer. Tears glisten upon his long, black eyelashes as he pleads for the Lord to help him, to help his sister so that they may help their ailing mother; now tears fill Salsabil's eyes, too, and her hands lift similarly in prayer, in sincere imitation of her more pious brother.

"I am not going to go out there tomorrow! I shan't! Not in this state," Yassamin's voice echoes through the crystal. And soon, with it, the surface of the crystal brightens and shows the children their parents, in their mother's bedroom. Yassamin sits huddled upon the bed, her eyes red and swollen; there is a bottle of wine upon the bedside table, and it looks as if she has been drinking from it. 

Presently, Jaffar sits beside her and draws her into his arms. "What happened? I thought you spent the entire day with the children."

"I did," Yassamin says, burying her face in Jaffar's robes. "Oh, but it was wonderful. I--you should have seen them. You should have been there. Our children, reciting the creed for the first time, without error," she says and bursts into tears once more. "Ever since I was a child, I had dreamt of that moment, of finally hearing it from my own children's lips." She looks up, her eyes smeared, and now the children can see Jaffar's eyes are filling with tears, too. "Jaffar, I swear I could hear it: the sound of angels' wings, coming to protect our little stars."

And Anwar and Salsabil remember this: how tight Yassamin had hugged them, how she had then sobbed from delight, murmured "God is great." Who knows, perhaps that rustle Anwar had heard then had not been the wind after all, but the wings of angels, just as Mother says. He had understood the moment was important for her, had realised it was something he would remember all his life. How green the grass had been, how colourful the autumn leaves, how crisp the afternoon air. How sweet the smell of roses in the garden--and how good he had felt, then, not even caring much that he had scratched his hands digging for the last piece of paper from underneath the rosebushes, the one inscribed with the name of the Almighty Himself. 

"What's the matter, then?" Jaffar asks, his voice so soft and so gentle; it is a voice that always devastates Salsabil, because Father only ever uses that voice when he is extremely moved, in either sadness or joy. Jaffar brushes Yassamin's hair aside from her cheeks and kisses her upon the mouth, her forehead. "What could be more perfect than this?"

"Zahra," Yassamin huffs. "Anwar asked for her again. Just when I thought I had them all to myself. Just for that one little moment, I--" she opens her mouth, but no words come out; she wipes her nose. "I would have wanted to hold them in my arms for but a moment longer, Jaffar. Do you understand? To not share them with anyone else, for once. For once not feel as if... well. This whole game was Zahra's idea, you see. It's as if--" and she wipes her eyes on Jaffar's cloak, now that he hands the corner of his black velvet one to her for the purpose. "It's as if I was just a channel for Zahra's love and care, she the better mother of us after all."

"But you know that's not true," Jaffar murmurs and holds her close.

"It's not true!" Anwar echoes, tears now escaping his eyes. "They're both--but we love them both!" he says and looks at Salsabil, who is now squeezing the silk of her sleeves in her little fists. "They're different!"

And this is exactly what Jaffar now tells Yassamin. "They are different kinds of loves," he murmurs into her hair. "You should know better than that, from all that we've been through," he says. "All these people we've loved--come, Yassamin. You know each one of them has been there for a different purpose. And Zahra is good at what she does."

"Aye, and even better than I am at what I should be good at--mothering!"

"Stop it!" Jaffar says, shaking Yassamin by the shoulders. "What would the children think if they saw this; hmm? That their mother thought they did not love her?"

But Yassamin is weeping too hard to even speak. "I--" she sobs, burying her face into Jaffar's cloak; it takes a while for her to form words. "It's as you said. I carried them underneath my heart for nine months. And nearly died bringing them into this world. But now, it seems to me that this wasn't enough, as if my work had stopped there, as if I had not given them enough love from that day on--"

Salsabil shakes her head, shocked, tears running freely down her cheeks; Anwar now presses his face into her shoulder the same way their mother now weeps against their father's chest.

"We have been bad," Salsabil murmurs wetly, choking on her tears, shaking from her shock. "We have been so wicked, Anwar. God will throw us into Hell. We have been bad, wicked, terrible children."

"We must do something!" Anwar says, wiping his tears on Salsabil's mantle, even if she had not offered hers to him.

"I will talk to them," Jaffar says, rocking Yassamin in his arms, kissing her head. "But don't you dare think they hate you, my love. They do not. They have told me so; little Salsabil fell asleep on my shoulder as I carried her to bed from the garden last night, and she was murmuring your name. And little Anwar asked me to pray with him before bed, and you know what he did? He read an additional prayer for you, asking for God and all His angels to keep his beloved mother. Did you know that? Hmm?"

Yassamin sniffs for breath, wiping her face and her nose. "I will try to remember."

"It will get better. I promise," Jaffar says, now sliding Yassamin's nightshift down her shoulders. "I promise. We all love you very much, my dearest; so very much," he says and kisses her, hugging her close to himself.

"Dim the crystal!" Anwar cries, covering his eyes. "They'll start _kissing_ again. And _mating._ They make such awful noises when they get like that! I can't stand it!" And now he can't seem to decide whether to put his hands over his ears or his eyes; he slaps one hand over his face and tries to wrap one arm around his head to cover both ears.

"Bring your whip," they hear Yassamin whispering; "I need it tonight," she says, pulling Jaffar down onto the bed with herself. "Whip the sorrow out of me, husband; wash it off me, scour it off me."

And it is then that Salsabil throws the velvet back over the crystal; she, too, has seen enough. "You _do_ know that he doesn't truly hurt Mother? Or that's what they say. That it's a game."

Cautiously, Anwar lowers his arms. "Mmm. Like when a cat mounts his mistress, he said. When they bite each other and shriek. I still don't want to hear it, though. It's _embarrassing._ "

"I still don't quite understand it," Salsabil murmurs. "How pain can wash away pain." 

"But it's simple!" Anwar cries and pinches Salsabil's bottom. 

"Hey!" She screams. "What did you do that for?"

"There! That's what Father did to me when I asked the same thing. You stopped thinking about anything else there for a moment, did you not? The same way, Mother's mind will have no room for sorrow when Father does the same. Like a doctor might have to do something that hurts you, only to make you better."

"It's still silly," Salsabil rolls her eyes. "Come. We should go back to bed." She gets up and rubs her backside.

"But what about tomorrow?" Anwar asks as they tuck the crystal back into its hiding place and replace the books. "I don't want to spend all day with Saif al-Din," he groans. 

The youngest of Mohammad and Latifa's children, and the most annoying of their cousins: at ten, he already thinks he is a little adult and is always bullying Anwar, every chance he gets. "Why do they even invite an _enemy_ when it's supposed to be a feast of friendship? Someone who's just _awful_ to others?"

"We should show them all a better example," Salsabil says and takes her brother by the hand, squeezing it tight as they sneak back into their room. "We should demonstrate what a good child is supposed to be like, and to prove that we can be that. And to show how much we love Mother, in a way that she will never forget. Tomorrow, at the feast. Like when they tell stories of the old heroes, and how friendship helped defeat monsters and tyrants?"

"Oh?" Anwar's face lights up as they are safely in their bedroom once more. "Like a play?"

"Yes, like a play," Salsabil says and hugs Anwar tight, kissing him on the cheek as she tucks him into bed. "We ask Father tomorrow morning. He always says he used to plot great plans when he was Grand Vizier. And that it was a magic plot by which he got Mother to see how much he loved her. So I'm sure he can help us make Mother see how much we love her, too." 

Anwar is lost in thought for a while; he does not let go of Salsabil's hand yet. He thinks of what Father had said--of how many years it took for him to get Mother to understand that he loved her. That he had to gently approach her through her mirror, a whispering voice in her garden, to get her used to the idea that there was someone out there in the world who loved her, someone who had always watched over her. And how another man had almost stolen her, because she had thought Jaffar had been but a dream; how she had thought her dark prince in the mirror had not even been real. And how it was only with the power of a magical blue rose that he had proved to her his existence once more, had made her remember who it was that had loved her all her life, who it was that loved her the most.

"Do you think Mother has just... forgotten again? Like she forgot Father? That maybe some veil has come over her eyes again, just like when Father had to use the blue rose, and it's not our fault after all?"

"Perhaps it's a little of both. But--" Salsabil lets out a jaw-cracking yawn. "We'll find out tomorrow. Even if it takes another blue rose, I am sure Father will help us make her see the light. But now, good night, brother. God's peace and blessings upon you."

Anwar kisses Salsabil on the head, too, hugging her tight before he lets her go. "God's peace and blessings upon you, too, sister."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some illustrations:
> 
> [Salsabil and Anwar watching their parents in the crystal](http://snowgrouse.aikamuna.org/Doodles/salsabilanwarcrystalcrop.jpg) and [Jaffar taking the kids for a walk in the garden.](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/145448007658/another-scene-from-roses-11-its-coming-soon-i) And an earlier version of the kiddies seeing their mother weeping [here,](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/145925646288/dont-think-i-posted-this-one-or-then-ive) before I thought of letting them spy on them through the crystal instead. And [here,](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/141569776563/most-parents-wonder-how-to-explain-to-their-kids) some doodles on how they first tried to tell the kids about bondage:3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have [a doodle](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/146343742638/jaffar-and-yassamins-mehregan-party-as-seen-in) of Jaffar, Yassamin and the kids trapped between Fadl and Zainab's tragic/hysterical/steamy UST as the party begins.

***

**Mehregan Eve**

***

"Jaffar, no!" Yassamin laughs as Jaffar surprises her in the corridor and captures her in his arms, flipping her around and attempting a kiss. She is still pleasantly sore from last night, most of her fears and doubts exorcised from her by Jaffar's loving hands; she has not felt like herself for a long time, until now. Tonight, she feels like a bride in Jaffar's playful embrace, and would love nothing more than to be kissed--she has spent all day preparing for the festival, cooking and decorating, and has not seen Jaffar since last night--but her carefully applied, festive face-paint would be ruined even by a single kiss.

"No?" Jaffar laughs, thinking this a game: he lifts Yassamin by the buttocks and spins her around and around so that her plaits and her veil swing in the air, so that she squeaks in delight. "Do you mean I have to earn it?" he says, growling playfully and snapping his teeth.

"You'll ruin my lip-paint!" she pants as he finally sets her down. "That is all."

"Well, then," he purrs and bends her back by the waist, dipping her down, down. "There's a solution to that. Give me your tongue."

"Jaffar!" her eyes widen at the thought, and she looks around herself--but no, they are alone in the corridor. Usually, Jaffar is never too lewd with her in public, only in the company of a few chosen friends; if they should be discovered now, _kissing in public,_ their guests would leave in disgust, thinking this a brothel. Her cunny pulses so that it sends a jolt through her entire body; her nipples harden against her undershirt. She nearly falls over, and as she clutches at Jaffar's robe, he has mercy upon her and lifts her back up, now only bending her a little, tilting back her head.

"Open up, my sweet," he says, his voice wet with a touch of mint upon his breath, his eyes bright blue slices of the sky; he pushes his thigh between hers and again, her cunny squeezes violently in delight. His lips gleam, so close to her face, now; gleam with the red she has always thought lascivious, always as if he had just been drinking wine.

She trembles and makes her choice. She opens her mouth wide and extends her tongue, pushing it out as far as she can. 

Of course, Jaffar takes his time in watching her so displayed, like a whore advertising her wares, and she can feel his hips jerking against hers. But this is excessive, now, surely; she looks ridiculous--

And then his mouth is upon her. At first, he but sucks at the tip of her tongue lightly; when she makes a noise of alarm at his lips brushing against hers, he immediately retreats, but not without a flick of his tongue against hers. Again, he dives down and takes her, making his mouth into a little nest for her to dip into, penetrated by the erect flesh. The meaning of this gesture does not escape Yassamin, and now her noise is so deep it vibrates straight into her cunny, makes her rut against the heat of his leg. 

But it is then that he retreats once more, his fingertips firm upon the small of her back, massaging it at the exact spot where the nerves that begin within the genitals meet those of the spine. "Stay still," he lets the words slither out of his mouth, and his fingers send shivers up her spine and deep, deep, deep into her womb. For again, he sucks, now harder than ever before, and as he closes his teeth around her tongue and sucks violently, whipping her tongue with his-- _It is not unlike sucking the clitoris, my sweet_ \--she screams openly into his mouth, helpless, and now she is wet, wet.

"God!" she cries as Jaffar finally lets her breathe. Her eyes are clouded from desire, now, and she blinks away their blur: her sight, however, sharpens into a vision of her husband smirking, leering, a touch of pomegranate paint rouging his already-lewd lips with a debauched gloss. If that is what _he_ looks like, what must _she_ look like after that kiss? 

"A mirror... I need a mirror," she says, absent-minded, flustered, and goes in search of the nearest washroom. 

Jaffar's laughter sparkles, trails and dances behind her as he follows her to the women's privy near the courtyard; one of Zainab's serving maids, already on her way out, lets out a shriek at the sight of a man coming in and skitters away like a mouse.

"Now, look what you've done," Yassamin says as she washes her hands, trying not to wear out their henna, fixing her lip-paint and kohl in the brass mirror on the wall.

"I didn't make too much of a mess," he purrs smugly and slinks his hips, arranging his temple-locks in his reflection above hers. "That, I must admit, has to count as one of the most amazing kisses of my entire life," he says and sighs happily, wrapping his arms around her from behind. 

But Yassamin is still flustered, casting her eyes down as he pulls her against his body, as he kisses her head through her veil. "It might have been the best I have ever received," she mumbles. 

"Well, I hope all the previous ones weren't _too_ bad," he laughs and shakes his head. "I am so very glad I can still love you in ways that feel new," he sighs. "Never has a woman inspired me so."

But it's only that this sends Yassamin's mind wandering to his other women--how he must have loved them, kissed them. Still. Must not dig up the ghosts of the past, she thinks and kisses Jaffar's hand, determined to remain glad that she is the best of them all in his eyes.

"I can hear what you're thinking," he says wistfully, without blame, contemplating their reflections in the mirror. "But it is this strange new illness of jealousy in you, when you have never suffered from it before. The same as it is with the children. But you do remember what I told you last night, yes? That trick on how to avoid thoughts of unreason?"

"I do," she says and turns around in his arms, hugging him tight. "And I don't know how to ever repay you." 

How he had helped her last night, not with just his whip but his wisdom: once the sweat of their lovemaking had dried, he had shared his father's practice with her, on how to deal with black thoughts, with madnesses. It had astonished her how he had not, for a moment, belittled her fears or her sorrows but acknowledged them, and then taught her techniques on how to trick them, to fool them so that they would not devour her alive. The trick was to not run away from the demons, he had told her, but to let them run past you, to let them run their course, while you took another path, focused on something entirely different instead. And she has succeeded at this a few times already: the arrangements for the feast have been a blessing, in that they have kept her mind busy, focused on other, more important things than her exaggerated fears.

"So, now you know," he says, holding her tenderly. "A wise woman once told me that if you felt miserable, it would help if you focused on comforting other people instead. That in doing so, you would feel less helpless and felt that you were doing something good, and made another person--and the world--better in turn."

She throws back her head and laughs. "Jaffar the tyrant? Telling me this?"

He laughs, too, rocking her in his arms. "I didn't say I put it into practice, did I? Not until I met you, that is," he says and kisses her head. "It was easier, and more practical, to keep the heads rolling when I had but the kingdom to wrangle. But then this demoness appeared, and needed taming..." he sighs and shakes his head. "My lady, making love to you has rid me of so many sorrows that I don't know how _I_ could ever repay _you._ For giving me the chance to prove myself so," he says.

"I am glad," she says, squeezing his hand. "But, come. We mustn't let the girls think this washroom is out of bounds." It's the privy nearest to the main courtyard, too; the place all the women, regardless of status, rush to during great festivals such as these when they have had enough to eat and drink. "We have a celebration to host."

"Until the small hours of the night, then, my lady," Jaffar says and kisses her hand, giving the back of it a little lick the way he always does when he desires conjugal joys later that night; his eyes blow blue flame into her body, making her tense, lifting her to her toes from anticipation.

"Oh. Before we leave," he says, stroking her hand with his thumb. "The children will be putting on a play of sorts tonight. They said it was dedicated to their mother, and that you should not miss it."

"Oh," Yassamin says, lustful thoughts now banished from her, a different kind of curiosity and light-headedness taking over her, now; she feels at once guilty and excited. "I hope that whatever it is, it will not reveal too much to the guests?" she asks, frowning. "I would not want them to know about my fits and humours."

"I asked the children about that, but they are intelligent little creatures, my sweet. Have no fear. I had a talk with them this morning and they rehearsed in front of me," he says, a warm and fond smile spreading onto his face. "I think everyone's hearts will melt."

"Even Fadl's?" 

Jaffar throws back his head and laughs. "Even Fadl's. If he can keep his eyes off Zainab, that is. No, my love. I don't think we have to worry about him tonight."

"God willing," Yassamin murmurs immediately, so as not to tempt fate.

For it is indeed a great feast Jaffar and Yassamin are arranging tonight, a feast dwarfed only by the governor's own, the latter an event it would not be wise for them to attend should they wish to retain their anonymity. For Nowruz and Mehregan are the only times of the year when rulers accept visitors from their entire domains, from amir to peasant, and friends and relatives come to meet each other no matter what the distance: guests from Baghdad and Basra are not entirely rare here. And should someone recognise them, their entire lives would be at risk: even after giving up the throne, many would-be kings consider all Barmakids dangerous and would assassinate them, and especially their children, in order to pave their own way to the throne. 

For it is a Barmakid that occupies the throne still: Dunya had indeed found herself a puppet of a husband, one whom she had disposed of as soon as he'd given her a son. And now, she herself rules in the young boy-Caliph's stead, a mighty empress holding sway over all the lands of Islam. 

Therefore, it is not the former Caliph who hosts tonight's banquet, not a prince Barmakid; it is but an eccentric engineer-mystic and his scholar wife who are putting on these festivities. 

Fadl, however, is to visit them as himself, still the governor of Khurasan, still the Amir of Balkh: any excuse to escape the responsibility of having to host a feast of his own and having to talk to his subjects, he says, so he had delegated the entire festival to his viziers and high priests.

And the good lady Zainab--well. She is a curious one. Either she knows Jaffar and Yassamin's true identities, or she doesn't; she's never told them whether Fadl--who would never shut up about being a Barmakid even at knifepoint--had revealed that he was Jaffar's brother. But in any case, she is good at keeping secrets, especially if it's in her best interests: the automaton business she is running with Jaffar has turned so profitable she has been able to take over every last mining operation in the Samarkandian Sogd, meaning that she finally _is_ richer than any of the Barmakids this side of Mesopotamia. And as the entire endeavour would fall apart without Jaffar and Yassamin's skill, she needs them as long as she is determined to stay in business. 

Latifa, too, had promised to drop by if her schedule allowed it, but as she is to be the one responsible for Mohammad's feast being as magnificent as it is, she might only be able to visit several days later.

That leaves them with but Zainab and Fadl's entourages, and from among them, only a small handful have been invited to dine with the hosts on the garden's three platforms, arranged around a small stage in the middle: women on one platform, men on another and Jaffar, Yassamin, Fadl, Zainab and the children in the middle. Yes, the children: Jaffar knows they want to prove themselves, and now that their cousins aren't coming--a fact Anwar had sighed in relief at--he allows them to sit with the adults instead of the maids, provided that they behave themselves. 

And they do, for the most part: after a few lingering moments, Anwar realises it is not polite to stare at a woman's bosom even if it is as freely displayed as Zainab's, and once Salsabil has made sure she is sitting as far away from her uncle as possible--Fadl is again reeking of animal scents and cracking far too many filthy jokes for comfort--they conduct themselves most admirably.

And since Zainab and Fadl have not seen each other in almost a year, it is the crackling tension between the two that provides some of the best entertainment that night. Zainab has worn one of her characteristic seductress's outfits and Fadl is as rakish as can be, both of them flirting not just with each other, but with the very limits of public decency; they would not have dared show up at Mohammad and Latifa's feast wearing what they do now. 

For Zainab is clad head to toe in silks pink and red and scarlet, the shades of the vulva itself, in fabrics so sheer it is a wonder she is not freezing in the autumn air; the same goes for Fadl, whose barbarian-style tight trousers and short tunic--again in the bright green of the Prophet's clan, a colour to which he has no claim--leave nothing to the imagination. Jaffar, Yassamin and the children are surrounded by heaving bosoms, jiggling buttocks, bare expanses of chest and on top of that, indecent curves of cock and ball and thigh; suffocated by the musk and ambergris and jasmine and rose the two libertines have doused themselves in, deafened by the tinkling and rattling of their gold and sapphire jewellery. 

_It'll be a miracle if we'll survive tonight without it all degenerating into an orgy,_ Jaffar thinks at Yassamin as she passes him the wine-bowl, already stained pink and red from the women's lip-paint.

Yassamin giggles at him drunkenly. _You know, I am not so sure I would mind._

Jaffar rolls his eyes. _My God. It's contagious!_ "Behave yourself, woman," he murmurs at her laughter, even if she can see the spark in his eyes, the illicit excitement that now awakens within him at the prospect.

Fadl purrs as he accepts the bowl from Jaffar in turn, devouring Zainab with his eyes. "Ooh, I don't know. I like a woman who is not afraid to be a little... scandalous. I've spent too much time with the pagans, methinks; I have to confess I find a certain _charm_ in the ways of the barbarian female."

Zainab bursts into honeyed, deep, intoxicatingly rich laughter. "You were yourself pagans but a few generations ago, Barmakid. I heard tell it was the custom among you for brothers to share but the one wife," she says pointedly, twirling a lock of golden hair between her plump little fingers.

Yassamin stiffens in alarm. Zainab knows, then. But she is not willing to give Zainab the satisfaction, she thinks, exchanging glances with Jaffar. "I heard that was but a foul rumour, spread by women who were out to grab power for themselves," she quips, equally casually as she pops a ball of rice into her mouth. "It would seem odd that the followers of the Buddha would think women were so lustful as to need several men to sate their needs; usually it is the other way around, I find. In this, as usual, the Prophet was right; only he had the sense to listen to God when He told him how He had meant for men to be."

Zainab purrs and rocks her hips, looking at Fadl; both their eyes are so heavily kohled their eyes seem blue stars in dark firmaments, twinkling bright in the setting sun's light. "Whereas my people would designate a priestess to lie with an entire boatful of men, should a rite require it. Perhaps it is only that pagan women can take more," she says, raising her brow, even if there is no true malice to her teasing. She is not out to upset Yassamin, and Yassamin knows this; all she wants is to stir Fadl's desire, and she is succeeding at it, succeeding at it indeed.

"However," Yassamin says pointedly, setting her cup down on a tray with an audible clink, "It is time for the pageants, is it not?" 

"Yes, it is! Yes, it is!" Both Salsabil and Anwar jump up, delighted; they have been like two kettles about to boil over, trapped as they have been between the adult tensions. 

"Well, then!" Jaffar says and claps his hands, and now the servants finish setting up the small stage in the middle of the U formed by the three platforms, a low dais that normally seats minstrels and dancers. "Let our little entertainers begin," Jaffar says, and while everyone else is turned towards the stage, he has Sonbol take away the strongest wine and replace it with an extremely diluted one, to make sure none will grow too drunk just yet.

"Where are you going?" Yassamin asks Jaffar as he leaps off the platform, wincing as his old knees are no longer as suited to leaping as they used to be.

"I am to bring the music," he says and kisses Yassamin's hand. 

Fadl rolls his eyes. "Oh, _no._ You have the singing voice of a tortured _frog._ "

Jaffar smiles at Fadl sweetly. "Go suck a donkey's prick," he says jovially, just so quietly the children cannot hear. "I am but the accompaniment."

But now, the children are on the stage, ready to begin, and now Jaffar takes his place beside it. He seats himself at a complex arrangement of percussion instruments, all linked to one another by ingenious machinery, so that he may take on the duties of an entire band. A tall blue curtain has been raised at the back of the stage, and in front of it hang several layers of gray veils. Jaffar begins to shake the tambourines and rattles, to strike the kettle-drums in order to mimic the sounds of thunder and rain: now, veil by veil is pulled aside to reveal a giant brazen sun, rising by the power of Jaffar's mechanics to shine over the stage. The sun, the symbol of Mithra, of friendship, of pacts and promises kept: this symbol is so well-known by all that it requires no introduction.

But instead of recounting the same old tales of Mithra everyone knows, the children have chosen to portray selected scenes from other myths, also dealing with beneficent forces, loyalty and love: namely, those concerning the Simurgh. The magical bird of healing, of motherhood, she who lives on top of the world tree, spreading her loving wings over the earth. Now, the children dance onto the stage in a giant, blue, dragonlike bird costume, painstakingly created by Jaffar overnight in his workshop: inspired by Chinese dragon dances, its hundreds of brightly painted paper feathers stream in the air as the Simurgh dances to and fro upon the stage to Jaffar's music. Even Zainab grows quiet and watches in awe, never having seen anything like it herself; Yassamin, too, is surprised at the sheer size and elaborate construction of the paper-bird and wonders if Jaffar had called upon djinn to help him build it. 

But the most endearing thing about this bird is that it does not look like any of Jaffar's finely crafted, artful creatures. It has clearly been built after the drawings of children, with its curious head--huge and with giant eyes--and wings of mismatched colours, a rainbow of long painted feathers rippling from each wing. And just as in the most beautifully illustrated manuscripts, the ones that have the Simurgh's tail flowing out into the margins of the page, this Simurgh's equally rainbow-coloured tail is so massive that it keeps floating off the stage; all can see how the children are bravely struggling to control the bird with their little hands and feet.

But now, Anwar, clad in white, steps out of the paper bird and Salsabil remains standing inside of it. There is a little nest upon the stage and Anwar curls up in it, while Salsabil hovers beside it, making a show of undulating her wings slowly, protectively over the nest. 

Salsabil, her voice already strong from her experience of reciting books, begins to tell them the tale of Zal, the legendary albino boy who was abandoned but taken in by the Simurgh, the mother of all birds, who then proceeded to bring him up as one of her own. She tells them of the Simurgh's nature, of how she is the greatest of all healers, how it is thanks to her wings that the seeds of all of God's healing herbs have been scattered over the earth in blessing. It is a tale everyone here knows well, but it is different, Yassamin thinks, to hear it told in the voice of a child, recited with the faith of a child: tears spring to her eyes. These are the tales she has read to her children on many a night, and this is how well they have memorised them, understood them, imbibed the meaning of them: her heart somersaults in her chest.

"For it is motherhood that is the most all-encompassing of loves," Anwar now says as he lifts his head from the nest, holding his hands out to the Simurgh as she gives him a ripe pomegranate. His fingers slip a little--the pomegranate has been cut and now, he lifts out a segment of it to reveal the seeds inside of it. "It is within a mother's heart that all her children are held nested and safe, just as seeds are nested within a pomegranate. Just like all human souls live side by side in Heaven, before God sends them down to earth to play." His voice quivers as he recites this, tears in his eyes as he looks straight at Yassamin, pleading with his eyes for her to understand, for her to know, for her to see.

And now, Yassamin is sobbing openly into her hand; Zainab's hand comes to rest upon her back as Yassamin wipes her eyes and mouth with a handkerchief. Anwar hesitates a little, breaking from the play, but Yassamin nods at him, signalling for him to continue. 

"And so--" Salsabil whispers loudly to Anwar from underneath the bird mask.

"And so," Anwar says, wiping his eyes with his sleeve as he stands up, holding the pomegranate up even higher, making sure that everyone sees it. "And so, it is a mother's love that is the greatest of all loves," he says and drops the pomegranate, hugging the Simurgh so tight his sister makes a squeaking noise inside of it. "For her wings cover her children in protection, just as God's love covers the earth; a mother is the Almighty's loving spirit manifesting among humankind, love itself made flesh."

The Simurgh wraps its colourful wings around Anwar's quivering, little form. "Let those who have ears hear; let those who have eyes see," she recites. "For there is no love sincerer, no love sweeter, no love truer than this: there is no lovelier place in the world, no place safer, no place more blessed than the embrace of a mother's wings."

And it is then that Jaffar brings the drums to a rattling, clashing, swirling, joyous crescendo: the children bow and the curtain falls. 

By now, Yassamin is rendered immobile from her emotion: she would run to the children, would embrace them if she could move her limbs. She is leaden from her shame, for ever having doubted her children's love for her; yet at once, she is elated, her heart rising to the heavens with Jaffar's music. He must have gestured for the children, for now they run into her arms and hug her, covering her in kisses. She, in turn, embraces them with both arms, hugs them tight, tight; she returns their kisses a hundredfold, rocking them both in her arms, unable to stop weeping. 

"My children. My children. My little Fountain of Paradise, my little Light of Heaven--" she sobs, absolutely uncaring of what Zainab and Fadl might think. She feels so fragile, but so strong at the same time, as she'd felt when she'd been carrying the children: dancing upon the edge of life and death, elation and fear and joy and sadness all a swirling storm within her heart. But now, two little pairs of arms cling to her, hugging her tight and she keeps on hugging them back, so hard none of them can breathe.

And now, her light and her fountain are joined by the wellspring himself: Jaffar's long arms come to embrace them all, his cloak drawing them all in; immediately, she thinks of Ali and his family, of how he had drawn all of them inside his cloak in blessing. And that is what Jaffar must be reminding her of, surely, The People of the Cloak? Of the family united, purified by the love of God?

 _Correct--that, and under the wings of a heathen bird-goddess!_ Jaffar laughs. _It may be blasphemous of me, but woman, you deserve the blessings of all the things that men have ever considered holy, all blessings ever invented. My sweet child and my sweet children, all of you._

"Father, why are you calling Mother a child?" Salsabil asks.

"But he didn't say anything?" Anwar asks his sister.

Jaffar but bursts into laughter, Yassamin joining him. "See? She can already hear my thoughts."

"You can hear ours, too, if you focus, Anwar," Yassamin whispers conspiratorially. "Listen."

 _Isn't Uncle Fadl stinky again?_ Yassamin now asks Anwar with her mind, and immediately, the boy bursts into wild giggles. 

"He is, he is!" Anwar says, glancing at Fadl.

"What's that?" Fadl frowns, suspicious.

"Nothing," Jaffar says, coming to embrace his brother, patting him on the back and dropping a big, wet kiss on his mouth. "Happy Mehr, brother. Whether you think brotherhood is worth anything or not."

"You are a fool," Fadl grumbles, but returns Jaffar's embrace nevertheless, patting him on the back.

 _And again, you are the greatest mother of all gathered here, husband,_ Yassamin thinks at Jaffar. _Do you see? You mothered this whole display, and now you hold to your bosom even your treacherous rascal of a brother,_ she laughs, her heart light.

"I'll drink to that," Jaffar says and toasts her, the children and the baffled Fadl and Zainab with the richly flavoured, light and sweet wine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of more family fluff doodles: [Anwar and Salsabil's performance](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/144686831193/im-too-ill-to-write-any-more-of-the-orgy-scene-in) and [a drawing of Jaffar wrapping up his family in his cloak.](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/144007303093/and-so-salsabil-whispers-loudly-to-anwar-from)


	4. Chapter 4

To Yassamin's great amusement--and she has to admit, relief--the night does not turn into an orgy after all. For Zainab is feeling capricious tonight, wanting to hone Fadl's desire by offering him only sweet denial. The very moment Jaffar leaves the platform to use the privy, Fadl moves in and tries to steal a kiss, but Zainab pushes him aside with a smile; she declares she is tired and that she would retire early. And oh, the indignant flame in Fadl's eyes as Zainab's serving-maids come to help her off the platform, the girls already caressing her knowingly as they slide on her mantle: all know _exactly_ what kinds of pleasures Zainab will be turning to tonight. 

"Perhaps tomorrow night, my sweet prince," Zainab says and has the audacity to tickle Fadl underneath his chin-tuft, as if he were a cat: before he can grab a hold of her, she is gone, her laughter tinkling in the evening air. 

"Why, that little cunny-sucking, devious, perverse little bitch!" Fadl mutters under his breath. 

It is then that Jaffar returns, with Zahra in tow; they have just been tucking the children into bed. "I think it's time you brought out the stronger drink, now, Zahra, now that the little ones are out of the way," Jaffar says and carefully hands her the now-empty crystal ewer. He glances at Fadl curiously as he takes his seat, ruffling Fadl's side-curls as if he were but a boy. "What's the matter, little fellow?" he croons at him with a mock-pitying tone. "Deprived of your dessert, I see?"

"Enough!" Fadl barks, enraged. "I'll take the burnt scraps, then, if I must!" He growls and crawls after Zahra; she is just about to step off the platform, her full backside presenting a temptation he cannot resist. "Come here, my dark beauty," he says and yanks her to himself by the ankle.

"Let go of me!" Zahra cries out and staggers upon the stair, but Fadl tugs at her leg so violently that she has to grab the platform's rail so as not to fall off. As a consequence, she drops the ewer; it shatters into a thousand pieces on the courtyard tiles.

"Fadl!" Yassamin cries, furious. "Leave her alone."

"What?" Fadl laughs, more drunk from his arrogance than the wine. "She is but a negress; little more than an animal. Look at how clumsy she is! Surely you would not fault me for having fun with one of your pets?" he laughs and tries to pull Zahra into his arms. 

"Stop it, you filthy swine!" Zahra cries and pulls away, but Fadl clings to her so that he tears the thin silk of her shalwars, baring one of her legs from buttock to ankle. 

"You bastard, you infidel dog!" Zahra shrieks as she grabs at the fabric to cover herself, clutching her apron around her torn drawers.

"What did you call me?" Fadl laughs, incredulous as he looks up at her, laughing still as he tries to push his hand between her legs. 

"I said _let go of me, you bastard!_ " Zahra shouts, pulls back her arm and punches Fadl in the face. 

Fadl falls back onto his cushions, more stunned from shock than any true pain. He gapes there like a fish, blood now beading upon his lip as he shakes his head to clear it. He looks around himself, astounded, only to be met with disapproval from both Jaffar and Yassamin; it's clear he cannot believe this is happening to him.

"What a liberty!" he roars and springs to his feet. "If you can't discipline your staff, brother, then I'm going to have to do it for you." He unbuckles his belt and throws Zahra down onto the cushions, raising his belt high with one hand, digging his prick out with another. "This will teach you to disobey a _prince_ of the realm."

"Fadl, that's enough!" Jaffar barks. Fadl's guards rattle their sabres, but Jaffar glances sternly in their direction: _We can handle this,_ he tells them with a psychic command, freezing them where they sit.

"I'll decide what's enough!" Fadl cries and aims his belt for a blow; Zahra screams and covers her face. 

But the very next moment, Fadl falls onto the cushions, clutching at his throat; he claws at his collar, coughing and wheezing, curling up in pain. 

"Jaffar!" he croaks at his brother in accusation, in agony as he tosses there, his lax prick hanging pitifully out of his trousers, lolling against his thigh.

"It is not I, brother," Jaffar says and throws the rest of his wine into Fadl's face; he nods towards Yassamin. 

"You will never do this to another human being again," Yassamin says, calmly, coolly; a fury terrible, she rises to her feet, her hand curled in a clutching grip. She has never used magic like this, has never _had_ to use it like this, but her anger and her rage make it surge out of her, naturally, easily, so that she shocks even herself. The strangling grip pours out of her through the air and crushes Fadl's throat, giving him so much pain that he is convulsing, and still the power flows out of her the rage of all women violated, flows. "Do you hear me, Fadl, son of Yahya?" she asks, hard, cold, her voice trembling with rage. "You will never do this to a woman again, nor a boy, nor any other human being ever again. No matter what size or sex or colour. _Say it!_ " she cries.

"Miserable witch!"

"Shall I kick him where it hurts, master?" Zahra says, tying up her torn shalwars, nudging Fadl's groin with her clog. She, too, is roiling with rage, shaking from her shock; who knows what terrible memories this has now brought up in her. She reels--drunk, too, from her sudden power--and in that moment, Yassamin does not care. 

"Go ahead," Yassamin says, never taking her eyes off Fadl.

Jaffar covers his eyes just in time, just before Zahra's shoe makes impact with Fadl's genitals. "Apologise!" she cries at Fadl, who is now curling up in a tight ball of pain.

It takes Fadl a while to form words; Yassamin can feel that for a moment, the pain had made him lose consciousness. Serves him right, she thinks; and she had thought he had mended his ways.

"I expected better from you, brother," Jaffar says, shaking his head, plucking this thought from Yassamin's mind. "Apologise to Zahra and we will be lenient. But if you try anything of the sort again, you can forget about ever showing your face here again." 

"I apologise," Fadl spits, looking up at Zahra; his once-finely drawn kohl now a smeared black mess from tears.

Yassamin lets go of the spell, lets go of Fadl's throat; Fadl falls onto the cushions, coughing, cupping his genitals. 

"Do it properly," Yassamin says. "Kiss her feet and apologise--and _mean it,_ " she says, with one last warning squeeze to Fadl's throat.

Groaning, Fadl crawls to Zahra's feet, his face twisted in misery as he forces himself to kiss Zahra's toes, bare and dusty as they peek out of her shoes. To so honour this filthy part of the body, and upon a woman black, a woman born a slave: it is the most humiliating act imaginable for the man who once was the Grand Vizier of all Persia. 

Yet he must; he has no alternative but to repent. "I am sorry. Forgive me," he croaks, looking up into Zahra's eyes; even if he might not be sincere, he at least fakes it admirably.

"I do, even if you do not deserve it," Zahra says, her eyes burning with hatred. "May I take my leave, mistress?"

Yassamin nods. "You may. And you will never have to serve this wretch of a man again. Take the rest of the feast-days off."

"You are most gracious, mistress," Zahra says, bowing before she hurries away.

"Sonbol!" Jaffar cries, nodding to the old eunuch. "We do need that strong wine; hurry." He glances at Fadl. "Apart from him. He's had enough."

Fadl says nothing as the servants leave, the guests following their example; all seem to realise it is best to leave their hosts alone for the rest of the evening. Jaffar nods sternly at Fadl's men and they, too, after a grudging signal from their amir, retreat to their quarters. At least Fadl has the decency to be ashamed of himself, Yassamin thinks, as Fadl pulls his trousers and belt back on. 

But it is then that Fadl stops tucking his hair back in, and starts unravelling his turban instead. Both Yassamin and Jaffar stare at him, a little shocked: no man takes off his turban in public, except in a state of extreme distress, heartbreak or shame. _Is this but another one of his tricks?_ Yassamin thinks to herself. The old courtier, vizier trying to manipulate them as he has always manipulated everyone around himself?

Yet there, Fadl sits, with his now-unravelled green turban--that symbol of power he had stolen for himself, that claim to be one of the Prophet's descendants--in his hands, sighing as he stares at the silk there in the twilight. His back trembles a little as he draws in a deep breath; presently, he looks up and offers Jaffar the silk, laying it at his feet in submission. 

Jaffar shakes his head. "Not me, brother," he says, nodding at Yassamin. "It is Woman you have insulted with your arrogance; therefore, it is Woman you should make your obeisances to."

Fadl's face wavers; it is immediately clear to him that this is one more humiliation, one that is almost too much for him to bear. But now, it also seems to Yassamin that he is finally beginning to understand the gravity of his crimes--to think that a man of his age would still need to learn basic morals, when Anwar and Salsabil, half a century his juniors, already have no trouble understanding the consequences of their actions! 

Fadl bites the inside of his cheek, Yassamin can tell; slowly, he turns to her, shuffling towards her on his knees.

"My lady," he says, laying the silks of his power and his privilege at her feet, bowing deep before her, prostrating as if in prayer. "I am yours to command."

Yassamin raises her eyebrow; she exchanges a look with Jaffar, both of them still suspicious of Fadl's sincerity. It is clear he needs to be taught a lesson. 

Therefore--and Yassamin has never done anything so audacious, now delivering an insult worthy of Fadl himself: she stands up and lays her slippered foot on Fadl's bare head. The most humiliating act one could think of at a moment like this, a gesture of utter abasement: one has to apologise even to a book for having touched it with one's foot by accident. But to do this to a man turbanless is to shame one utterly, to push Fadl's humility to its utmost limits, to put his sincerity to the test: he lets out a quivering breath, but he remains silent. He knows he has to prove himself, knows he has to suffer this to atone for his sins.

"My lady," he rasps, with Yassamin's foot still upon his head, his forehead touching the ground. "May I speak?"

"It depends on whether you have anything worthy to say."

"Please don't tell Zainab," he chokes, to Yassamin and Jaffar's utter surprise. "I--I cracked. That woman has power over me, the power of witchcraft," he says. "My desire for her makes me into a madman, and I have behaved like a fool. I apologise most sincerely. Trust me. For her, I would offer obeisances even to--"

"Even to a negress?" Yassamin asks, tapping his head with her foot.

"Yes, anyone!" Fadl cries. "Please. I will do anything you say. Just don't tell Zainab."

Jaffar bursts out into laughter, pouring himself a large helping of the stronger wine. "He-is in loo-ove, Yassamin," he sing-songs, his eyes twinkling over the brim of his cup; he cannot hold back his chuckles. "My, my," he purrs, shaking his head. "My brother, with one foot in the grave, has finally fallen in _love._ "

Yassamin has to pull her foot off Fadl's head; she is so astounded she cannot help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. The most arrogant man she has ever known, the most obnoxious of spoiled brats, of vain princes, Fadl son of Yahya of the Barmakids, is in love.

"So that's how it is," she laughs and sits back down on the cushions. "Up, up, my slave," she says, taking the wine-bowl from Jaffar as he passes it to her. "We--lady Zainab and I, that is--must think of a suitable punishment for you."

Jaffar nods. "Aye. I agree that it should come from the hand of a woman, and the one he loves the most at that; nothing less would do."

"Please!" Fadl says, wringing his hands and clutching them into fists as he kneels there, looking at Yassamin, then Jaffar, then Yassamin again. "I do not want to fall out of favour with her."

"You are in her favours?" Yassamin laughs, deliberately cruel, the wine already heating up the blood in her veins.

Fadl rolls his eyes. "I mean it, truly, sincerely. Please. Anything you ask."

Jaffar lets out a pitying croon. "Ooh, but you should be careful what you wish for," he says, tutting at Fadl. "For she is the mistress of all atrocities, if you were not aware of this yet."

"Atrocities?" Fadl frowns. 

"Beyond a playful spot of love-binding, yes," Yassamin says as she hands the drinking-bowl back to Jaffar. "We did see you in our crystal the last time you visited her. I take it she did not have time to introduce you to any of her more... arcane practices?"

Fadl but swallows at that. 

And the most terrifying thing of all--to Fadl, that is--is that now both Jaffar and Yassamin burst into hysterical laughter, as if they had been taking hashish; they need not even exchange thoughts or words because they are both thinking of the same things, of all the tortures Zainab could inflict on Fadl if she so pleased. Whips, mouth-gags with leather pricks, milk enemas squirted into gaping mouths--oh, he has no idea, has he? 

"I shall have a word with her," Yassamin says, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. "Tomorrow, we shall punish you for your crimes, in the best way we see fit."

"But--" Fadl stutters.

Jaffar lays his hand on his shoulder. "Take it like a man, brother. For I have an inkling that you might enjoy it, if you but approach it with the right... attitude, as it were," he chuckles, patting Fadl on the groin, still breathless from his mirth as he relishes Fadl's terrified expression. "But now, I suggest you retreat to your quarters to gather your strength, brother mine; I am sure you are already acquainted with Zainab's legendary stamina. She, and this demoness here, would exhaust an army of djinn if they so wished."

Fadl but stares into the distance. "Do you remember the pagans that ambushed us in the Caspian? When we were boys?"

"What of them?" Jaffar asks.

"I am now more afraid than I was then," Fadl mutters.

"You should be," Jaffar says and pats his back, grinning widely.

Yassamin nods, signalling to Fadl that he should take his leave. "Good night, brother-in-law, and pray to God for forgiveness. Zainab and I shall see you on the morrow."

And as Fadl staggers across the courtyard a man dejected, Yassamin and Jaffar fall into each other's arms laughing, cackling madly.

"You are _terrible,_ " Jaffar purrs in arousal, in admiration against her cheek as he can finally breathe again, his hand soft upon the buttons of her jacket. He still wheezes, his entire body juddering from his chuckles; he shakes his head and looks up at the darkening sky, the stars twinkling there. "Hey! Stars!" he cackles. "You, the all-knowing stars! Did even you, in all your wisdom, know that this time tomorrow, my brother Fadl would be sporting _a brand new arsehole?_ "

Yassamin shriek-laughs into his kiss, the wine splashing as she sets the cup aside and pulls Jaffar to lie on top of herself. "We should just stand aside and watch," she giggles; "Zainab's going to make both of those arseholes into little cunnies!"

And at that, they fall over into even further hysterics and cackles; they devour each other's mirth from their kisses, passing chuckles from mouth to mouth, transmitting laughter-tremors from belly to belly as they tussle there. 

Yassamin pulls back from Jaffar's kiss, throws back her head in delight, breathing deep from the evening's fragrances: the last of the year's roses, the last fruit still ripening upon the trees, the perfumes of violets and orange blossoms Jaffar had mixed into the waters of the fountains in honour of the festival. "There is only one thing that could make my day more perfect."

"Nd thath ith?" Jaffar asks, muffled as he has just been undoing the buttons of her jacket with his teeth. 

"Make love to me," she says and cups his head, his hair now free from its turban; she sighs soft into his mouth rich from wine. "Make love to me, my sweet husband, here and now; here, underneath the stars."

Jaffar kisses her long, sweet, sucking on each of her lips until his own mouth is stained from her pomegranate lip-paint. "I would love nothing more, my sweet mistress." He looks up and laughs. "In a garden full of apricots, I am not satisfied--I must find me the one, plump peach!" he declares and dives between her legs, pulling at her clothes until he has exposed her cunny, revealed its sweetness to the cool night air. "My ocean of nectar," he sighs and nuzzles its lips; "there is nothing in the world for me that would taste as sweet."

Yassamin shivers, uncaring that her clothes are tangled, uncomfortable; she arches underneath his touch, his breath warm upon her cunny, such a wonderful contrast to the evening air. The rustling leaves and the nightingale make music about them, the lamps in the harem's arched windows glow warm and bright, and somewhere in the distance, Zainab's sparkling laughter pours honeyed into the night. 

Yassamin is about to whisper "Please," but it is then that Jaffar laces his fingers with hers and presses his mouth to her mound. She sobs deep in her throat from sheer emotion, holding on to his eyes just as he never takes his gaze from hers as he so kisses her; she, too, flows honeyed, honeyed into his loving mouth. She squeezes his hands as he sucks upon her clitoris, as he sucks and laps at the taste of her from her folds, savouring her everywhere; his hair falls into his eyes from time to time and together, they laugh and blow it away from his face. 

And on and on he continues, this torture that is at times unbearable, the way but external stimulation always feels for her: it is as if she is trapped, always caught just upon the edge of orgasm, spinning and falling forever, falling into the vast open sky of his gaze. Falling, like autumn's leaves now fall around them, falling, like that shooting star plunging down from the heavens--and now she cries out as he pushes fingers inside of her, urging her on, on. 

For a moment, she winces, still sore from last night, and now she is not so sure if she can come--perhaps she has had too much wine to drink? But all the emotions she has gone through today now cascade through her: nervousness, fear, gladness, realisation, elation, mother's love, the rage of all women violated by men, cruelty and vengeance and mirth--and now again, love, love--and she is there. Roaring deep, hard, an animal sound from her belly, she tosses upon his hand, clutching his head to her cunny, pressing his teeth against her pubic bone, urging him to keep on flicking her clitoris with his tongue, flicking it, flicking it. 

"Jaffar--Jaffar!"

But this is not enough; it is but a half-orgasm, and he knows from experience when she has not had complete release, when she needs to be taken still. And not two moments pass that he has undone his drawers and slid inside of her, almost too soft for it at first, but rapidly hardening as she takes him inside of her loving flesh, massaging his prick with her muscles, the rolls of her loving hips. 

"Yassa--" he gasps, flinching back a little. He, too, is sore from the exertions of last night, having ravished her with such brutality he had chafed his own prick. She can feel his sensations through his body now joining hers, can feel the way he needs to move slowly so as not to give either of them too much pain, even if instinct and desire would push him into taking her far faster, deeper. But she takes his hands once more, laces both of them, now, pulls them high above her head and onto the cushions; she opens her legs and milks him, slickening them both with her sweetness until they hurt no more. No, nothing hurts any longer, all pain in her body and her mind gone, gone; she feels a new woman, now, strong. 

_That's what I thought,_ Jaffar murmurs inside of her mind, glad. _That it was a woman new, a lioness that stepped out of my Yassamin tonight, the moment she was reassured of her children's love. A lioness protecting not only her cubs but her friends._ And now, he purrs out loud, for certain things need to be said out loud. "I was so proud of you; can you feel how my heart swells still?" he asks.

"I can," she says, caressing the small of his back with her feet. "I was surprised myself." She had never used magic for anything like that; had only utilised it for little tricks. 

"Mm," he murmurs and rocks his hips, nuzzling her nose with his; his eyes are crossed from his happiness. "That after all these years, you should still keep on surprising me; that after all these years we should grow still," he sighs, choking a little. "My sweet, my sweet."

"And may we grow long still," she says, and she knows what he is now thinking of: his own mortality, as always; the passage of time. But now, she takes her magic and uses it for another, worthwhile purpose, the one he had taught her last night: she deliberately pushes at his mind, pushes those dark thoughts where they belong, far far away from the centre of love they are now established in, the core of them filled with nothing but love. 

_Nothing but love tonight, husband; I charge thee and I command thee,_ she murmurs into his mind, arranging her words deliberately like those of a sacred litany, a spell. _As nothing but love, I command you to come unto me, my husband sweet; come unto me._

_Oh, but beyond death would I still love thee,_ he answers her in kind; _until the last nightingale's song dies and all is still._ "But not for a long while yet, my sweet, not for a long while still," he growls, defiant in the face of Death itself as he rolls his hips with a newfound vigour, thrusting into her hard and deep. So hard and so deep that he is hurting himself, hurting Yassamin a little, but now it is but a sweet pain, the pain they both need to push each other to the peak: clinging to each other, moaning into each other's mouths they take each other, falling in perfect symmetry, perfect synchronicity, the crests of her waves crashing down to drive up his. On and on, they rock into each other, washing each other clean; she pours the gold of her love into him and he flows into her as light and sperm and sweetness, their skin pearling with sweat long before they have had their fill.

He lies still within her for a long while; she pulls his cloak over them both so that they do not have to move, so that they do not have to separate just yet. He lies there with his head nestled within the crook of her neck, pillowed upon the dark clouds of her hair; they both gaze out into the night, at the stars that come out now that night has fallen.

There is a flutter of light in her belly; all of her limbs stiffen in fear.

"Jaffar--"

"I felt it, too," he says, holding her, soothing her. 

"Please," she looks at him. And she is so ashamed. She hates herself, asking for what she feels would be murder--

"It is not murder to stop a woman from being killed," Jaffar says firmly, out loud. 

Another pregnancy would kill her, the midwife had told them, in no uncertain terms: she was lucky to have survived the operation in the first place. But a new child would tear open her womb's scars, exsanguinating her and suffocating the infant in her blood, slaying them both where they lay.

She swallows her tears and nods. "It is for the best. Hurry. Before it--"

 _Before it becomes even an embryo;_ she thinks. _While it is still but that spark; while it is still but your seed and mine mingling._ Even if it takes several months for the soul to truly arrive, she does not want to even make a home for one, anything even resembling a potential human being; the faster Jaffar does this--

He hugs her tight and takes her mouth with his.

And there, in the darkness of her body, the little light that had fluttered there is blown away like a candle flame. The soul that had sought a home here is sent back to Heaven, back to God's bosom to await its turn, to await the woman who can bear it in love, to deliver it safely.

And Yassamin weeps in Jaffar's arms, weeps in gratitude and shame and relief; Jaffar kisses away each tear, wipes his own with her hair, rocking her in his embrace. 

"My sweet, my sweet, my sweet," he murmurs, his voice a soft meaow as he covers her face in kisses; he slips out of her mind and her body and tucks her back into her clothes, supporting her body with his as they lift up. "Come. Let us have a wash, a good prayer and sleep," he says, lifting her chin with his hand.

She shakes her head, swallowing her tears. "What good deeds did I ever perform to be blessed with a husband like you? Another would call me a murderer, for what we have just done."

"Shh. You are not," Jaffar says as he helps her to her feet, wrapping her in his cloak as they make their way back into the house. "I saw the angel of Conception, bearing the flame in his hands. I pleaded with him and he turned away, without blame; that child will take birth elsewhere. We--well, God--has just saved two lives, and made sure your children have a mother in a year's time still."

"God is merciful," she whispers and leans her head against Jaffar's shoulder as they enter the harem's hallway, clinging to his shirt with her hand. "You called me a lioness, but you have made me that, husband. You and no one else; I hope you realise that."

"Oh, but you shouldn't forget the children," he says, kissing her hair, smiling. "Do you want to pay the little cubs a visit before we sleep?"

She nods, and quietly, like two cats they make their way to the nursery, peeking at the children's beds from behind the curtain. Both Salsabil and Anwar seem to be sleeping soundly, smiling happily--usually, Salsabil sleeps with a little frown, but tonight she seems relaxed, finally at ease. Jaffar squeezes Yassamin's hand as they stand there, the moonlight bathing the little ones in its silver light; and in that moment, Yassamin is again washed clean of all shame, remembering what Jaffar had told her about the secret of happiness: it is to live in the moment, to be grateful for what one has, to remember to always praise God for what is already within one's reach.

"Thank you," she whispers to the night sky for the Almighty to hear, her heart light; "thank you," she whispers against Jaffar's cheek as they finally curl up together to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet more doodles to illustrate the thing: [here are the sexy outfits the ladies are wearing](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/144427942728/have-a-quick-sketch-of-the-scenario-that-awaits) as Jaffar and Fadl arrive, including Zainab's *ridiculous* bottomless thing (NSFW) and [Zainab taking Fadl by the beard](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/144539032708/todays-doodles-which-ive-been-doodling-instead) (also NSFW). Basically? Fadl is so, so screwed :D

"Careful with that thing!" Fadl cries as Jaffar inserts the tip of the enema syringe into his arse, his voice echoing off the bathroom tiles. This was _not_ what he'd had in mind when he'd accepted Jaffar's invitation to visit him for Mehregan. The pleasures of the flesh, he _had_ expected, yes; he had known he would find Zainab the Harlot here. But that the implication should be that _he_ would be the one being taken? It's preposterous. 

Fadl, son of Yahya does _not_ get fucked. He _fucks._ Fadl the Goat, the terror of Balkh takes whom he wills, plows into cunny and arse, submitting all to the might of his prick. In fact, he had come here to teach that conceited Hyperborean bitch a lesson or two, to put her in her place; he would not let her overpower him so easily this time.

"First of all," Jaffar says, pressing the plunger and releasing the warm water a little faster than necessary into Fadl's guts, "I _am_ being careful with this thing. It's only that you struggle, so you can only blame yourself if you willingly choose to perforate your gut. Now, stay still."

"I _am_ staying still!"

"Secondly, I can hear what you're thinking," his bastard of a brother laughs. "That you should still think of yourself in such terms..." he tuts. "This tight little arse is a _marvellous_ thing to fuck. In fact, it is your stubborn grudging of it that makes it even more delightful a squeeze. Do you think that if I asked nicely, Zainab would let me play with you after she's had her fill?"

"What's she going to take me with?" Fadl snorts and tosses his hair out of his eyes. "A woman doesn't have the necessary equipment. She's brought some pathetic little toy for the purpose, I expect? A prick made of wood? Ivory? Whatever it is that those miserable little clitoris-suckers use in their desperation when they can't find a _real_ man. A prick without heat, without blood, without nerves--what pleasure, pray, would it bring her? Or are you going to--" he means to finish his sentence with 'give her a magical prick,' but he does not want to tempt fate. He knows Jaffar's sorceries all too well, and at this rate, he's going to get three cocks inside of him if he's not careful.

"Now, there's a thought."

"Stop reading my thoughts!"

"Well," Jaffar says and takes out the syringe, seating Fadl on a chamberpot. "The object of the exercise is to teach _you_ a lesson, and methinks it is the look on your face that she seeks to satisfy herself. You, in pain. And maybe, just maybe, if she is feeling generous, she might even throw in a little pleasure for you, too, at the end of it. _If_ you can convince us that you are truly repentant. Think of it, brother mine; all three of us shall be focused on but you. Isn't that exactly what you want? Hmm? To be the centre of attention?"

Fadl pretends not to hear what Jaffar's saying as he evacuates, making sure to do it as violently and as noisily as possible. But by now, he has taken three rounds of enemas, so that all that comes out of him is water; the only thing he can annoy Jaffar with is the loud noise he makes in his throat as his arse and genitals are spattered. He grimaces and purges until no more water comes out, refusing to look Jaffar in the eye.

"Yes, that exact face, I think," Jaffar mutters as he turns a valve set into the wall to turn on one of the showers, then tests the spray for warmth. "Come here and I'll wash you. It'll be the last bit of comfort you'll get for a while, so I suggest you take what you can get," he says, grinning, with that streak of genuine warmth that always infuriates Fadl.

"Yes, well, I appreciate your concern for my welfare, brother," Fadl grumbles as Jaffar proceeds to scrub him underneath the shower. "It's quite touching."

"You know, I think this is _exactly_ what you wanted. You misbehaved so that the women would give you a good thrashing. Is that a secret fantasy of yours?" Jaffar chuckles. "After Zainab so conquered you, you hoped and prayed for a repeat performance?"

"Shut up!" Fadl cries, takes the sponge from Jaffar and throws it in his face. "Just get this over and done with."

And yet, Jaffar remains patient; he but picks up the sponge and begins to wash himself. Oh, but Fadl had much preferred the younger Jaffar; the impulsive and adventurous youth he had grown up with had been much better a companion to him than this calm, philosophical figure Jaffar has now matured into. Within his heart of hearts, Fadl feels a twinge of envy: this is what he had, at one stage in his life, hoped to mature into himself. His year of repentance, the year he had spent with the Sufis, trying to shed his lower self and to become a better person in God's eyes. But in the end, his lusts for blood and power and flesh had always won; therefore, he reasoned, God--who does not make mistakes--had made him what he was, so that other people could feel better about themselves. For are some not indeed condemned to Hell from birth, unable to change their fates no matter how many good deeds and penances they performed? It's right there in God's book; his name is on that list: Fadl, son of Yahya was born a demon and shall die a demon. 

And it was this role that he had cherished ever since, that of the bad example. When others constantly tried to better him, they lavished care upon him, and, well. Every time he stopped being a bastard, this care dwindled, and life became much more boring besides. 

Therefore, there is no such thing as settling down for Fadl in his old age, no, no; Yahya's firstborn is a man of conflict, and always will be. He is deathly afraid that should he stop being the fly in everyone's ointment, he would stop being himself; not possessing Jaffar's philosophical, scientific and spiritual nature, his lower self is all he has. And that's as it should be, for he would not want to deprive the do-gooders of their job, now would he?

"And your shaykh told you that," Jaffar says, quiet as he turns off the shower and offers Fadl a towel. At first, Fadl thinks it is judgement he sees in Jaffar's calm, clear gaze, or pity; however, it looks something more akin to resigned amusement. "You have been told you are a devil so many times that you do not know of anything else; of any other Fadls that might be."

"I told you to stop looking into my mind," Fadl grumbles as he accepts the towel.

"It would be easier were you not thinking so loudly, as if you _wanted_ me to listen," Jaffar says, gentle as he lays his arm over Fadl's shoulder and leads him to the dressing room. "You know as well as I do that demons can convert; in fact, that's all they ever do, if you look at the literature," he says warmly, glancing at Fadl. "Look at this merciless tyrant right here," he says with a wry smile.

But it's not conversion that's at the centre of Fadl's thoughts at the moment. He watches through the window lattice as the women make their way to the platform they had all sat upon last night: only now the platform is covered with colourful silk canopies to provide shade from the afternoon sun. "Will they not feel humiliated, being used by you in public thus?"

Jaffar shakes his head. "It was Zainab's idea; she said she wanted some fresh air. Yassamin, however, demanded some privacy, so upon her insistence, I cast a spell over the courtyard. None will be able to enter, or get within hearing distance. Unless you should scream very loudly, of course," Jaffar grins as he pulls a light blue kaftan over his head. 

"Would it--" Fadl licks his lips. "Would it be too late for me to ask you to teach me some magic?"

"Oh, so _now_ you're interested in magic? What for? Love spells?"

Fadl frowns. "To keep Zainab from seeing into my mind," he mumbles as he pulls on his own robe, shuffling into his slippers. _To keep her from destroying me,_ he thinks, but he is damned if he is going to say that out loud.

"You really do love her, then," Jaffar says, quietly. But before Fadl can bark an interruption, Jaffar raises his hand in a placating gesture. "No. I understand. She is a woman given to cruelty and caprice, which is why Yassamin and I limit our associations with her." Jaffar had told him--and Zainab had boasted to him--of their having slept together; Fadl had never found out all the sordid details of that engagement, and finds he prefers it that way. 

"You are wise to be careful with her," Jaffar continues. "But you needn't fear her reading your mind; thankfully, she does not possess the sort of spiritually inclined mind that could wield magic easily. She does not have enough concentration, and is too easily bored," Jaffar grins, "exactly like you, in fact. No, no; only I can hear your thoughts, and Yassamin might, but you don't have to fear Zainab in that sense."

Fadl swallows, and finally, looks Jaffar in the eye. "And what about the other ways in which she could...?" Oh, but he hates even thinking this, but he has to say it out loud; he would rather die than say it in front of the women. "Would you--would you protect me from the worst?"

"Brother!" Jaffar laughs warmly and gathers Fadl into an embrace. "I doubt she will maim you. I am a little jealous of you, in fact; you have a mighty ride ahead of you. But you have to remember that you were about to commit the greatest crime a man can commit upon a woman. The fear you now feel is the fear women have to live with each day of their lives, even when they go to the bazaar to buy vegetables. And they want you to understand that. When you swore never to molest another, ever again--they want you to prove you meant it. Therefore, I suggest you do exactly as they say, and you should survive with your privy parts intact."

"Yes, well, that's _very_ reassuring," Fadl grumbles into Jaffar's shoulder.

Jaffar laughs and pats him on the back. "Come. We shouldn't keep the ladies waiting."

***

Despite his terror, Fadl is half-erect by the time they reach the garden platform. He is not bound in any way whatsoever, and it's not exactly as if Jaffar is holding a dagger to his back; it is by his honour that he is led here, what little he knows of the concept. Or is 'honour' even the sort of word that should be applied here? For surely it is a scene dishonourable--and thus befitting him perfectly, he thinks wryly--that he now finds himself stepping into as he climbs up the wooden steps and parts the cream and rose curtains.

Paradise and Hell spread out before his eyes, here: Yassamin and Zainab sprawl upon the cushions as beautiful as a pair of houris, smiling as wickedly as demonesses. And what they are wearing--oh, not even in the most expensive of brothels has he seen the like.

For there they lie, sipping ice-cold sugar milk, in costumes that are completely transparent: Yassamin in a robe--if you can call it that--but a whisper of pink silk, girt about her hips with an elaborate golden belt. From this belt, chains upon chains of golden beads, droplets and leaves tumble and cascade over the curves of her wide, lush hips and the smooth little mound of her sex. They make sweet music as she rocks there a little, pressing her thighs together in that way Fadl knows is a subtle form of masturbation for women, a soft squeezing of the cunny between the legs. She exchanges a heavily kohled glance with Zainab's blue-lidded one, two pairs of pomegranate lips pursed in the moues of haughty courtesans; oh, but they love to tease him in this way, relishing the play.

And Zainab, the object of all his desires, curses, adorations, oh, Zainab the Harlot: despite the heat of the day, she is clad in all black, a blouse and a pair of shalwars made of silk. But this silk, too, is completely sheer, barely visible as it whispers over her enormous breasts, the rich rolls of her belly, the glory of her full and fat thighs. And it is then that she, pretending she is stretching, pulls up one of her legs closer to her body, bending it at the knee; this, she does only to reveal that her drawers are split in the middle, exposing her freshly shaven, plush cunny completely to the afternoon air. 

Fadl's eyes fly wide; his cock jolts with heat, his blood rushing to his groin at such speed that he fears he will faint. "My God!" is all he can whisper; he staggers as he climbs in, remaining on all fours, but staring at Zainab's cunny as if there were no other sight in the world for him. Like the heathens of India worship the cunny in their rites, praying and bowing to giant vulvas in their temples, oh, oh; he swears that a breeze now carries its fragrance into his nostrils and they tremble at its sweet caress, tremble. 

" _Very_ impressive," Jaffar drawls, smacking Zainab on her equally bare buttocks as he takes his seat between the women, gifting Yassamin with a long, sweet, passionate kiss. "Now. Ladies. Tell us of your plan."

Yassamin purrs and butts against Jaffar's shoulder, like a cat swooning from desire; immediately, Fadl wonders whether Jaffar has laid a love-spell over the women, so languid they seem, yet they do not seem to be intoxicated from alcohol or drugs. He himself senses them all so acutely, so strongly that he wonders if he is under this same spell himself, for it is the same as when one tastes food after a long fast: everything tastes richer, more full of flavour; now, the women's perfumes wrap about him, pulling him in. He lifts up to his knees and he can smell the musk in Yassamin's curls, hear the tinkle of her earrings as she leans in to whisper something in Jaffar's ear.

"Oh-ho-ho!" Jaffar cries, glancing at Fadl; his leer is so wide and so wicked it exposes his entire crooked row of teeth. "Is this your plan, too, my lady Zainab?"

And now it is Zainab who tinkles, the clusters of sapphires about her wrists and her forehead chiming as she lays her hand over Jaffar's leg, sliding his kaftan up his thigh. "We thought we would show him what he is missing, not caring for women's feelings; that we would use a _gentleman_ to illustrate the pleasures a more considerate lover enjoys in his women's arms. Would you lend us your body for this purpose, Abu Anwar?"

"Call me 'Jaffar.' Please." He takes Zainab by the chin and nuzzles her nose; he draws in a hissing breath through his teeth as Zainab's plump little hand closes around his erection underneath his robe. "Gladly would I leave my body in the hands of two such capable mistresses--nay, I apologise, two _scientists_ of the art of love." He turns to look at Yassamin, sinking his hand into her hair, tilting her head back by it; he stares deeply, passionately into her eyes as he gifts her with this pain, this sweet pain Fadl remembers she so relishes in love-sport. A little cry dies in the back of her throat and her nipples point hard and crinkled through her shift, all of her trembling so that it is a miracle the entire cloud of silk does not fall off.

Without even glancing at Fadl, Jaffar plucks this thought from his mind and does exactly that, having enjoyed the idea: suddenly, the seams of Yassamin's clothes come undone and all her silks sluice off her like water, a pool of pink silk rippling in the breeze. Her breath stops, now, stops entirely: her skin is covered in goosebumps and the sheen of tears sparkles in her eyes. Yet she waits, waits underneath Jaffar's cruel, sweet smile and twisting hand, sitting completely still until he finally brings his lips to hers. He opens his mouth wide, lewd, licking at her mouth so that everyone can see, his tongue a dark red to match her pomegranate; Yassamin's mouth falls open as if from a psychic command from him, he licking at her on the inside with great relish, as if he were lapping up a sweet dessert from a bowl. 

It is a sight disgusting, revolting, yet such an erotic shock to Fadl's nerves that he has to press his nails into his palms to keep from crying out, his cock now pulsing against his silks so that he is staining the front of his kaftan.

"So it shall be," Jaffar murmurs and strokes Yassamin's cheek, his own pupils now dilated from desire. "You shall both obey your desires, and I, like a true gentleman, shall fulfill them," he says, nuzzling her face tenderly. "Tell me, then, my sweet Yassamin. What is your desire?"

"To serve you," she says, and the power in her voice as she says this is unlike anything Fadl has ever heard from a woman. Even as she yields to her husband, submits to his will, she is majestic in her surrender; this is no meek slave girl but a woman strong, brave as a warrior swearing fealty to his lord. Never has he been on the receiving end of such devotion from a woman, such worship, and it stings his heart: this is the lesson Jaffar had wanted to teach him, it's plain to see. Both he and Jaffar had heard it from their father's lips, had read it from princes' manuals, yet out of the two of them, it was only Jaffar who had ever believed it: that it was only true love and honesty and care that could command true devotion, true faithfulness, true loyalty from one's women. Jaffar had never trusted his subjects, had never trusted men, but had always loved women to the point where it had nearly cost him his life; Fadl himself had trusted not a single soul, just to be sure.

But behold, now, the grace of lady Yassamin: the fashion in which she now bends down to take Jaffar's cock into her mouth is nothing less than the prostration of prayer, and Fadl hates this, is jealous of it. And even Zainab, Yassamin's opposite, the temptress only a fool would trust--the only being in this courtyard as ruthless as he, as much of a devious bastard as he, the only one on his level--now looks upon him with scorn. 

"And what is your desire, my lady Zainab?" Jaffar asks as he pulls off the rest of his clothes, leaning back on the cushions as Yassamin takes him with her mouth.

But it is Fadl Zainab is now looking at as she caresses Yassamin's head, as Jaffar unbuttons her blouse. "I would command you, my lord Jaffar. I would use your body to illustrate what a true lover can give in his taking."

Jaffar shakes his head. "You frighten me, my lady."

"Good," Zainab smirks, now looking at Jaffar as she slips her hand between his legs, giving his sack a little cup with her hand. "But what about your scoundrel of a brother? I do not trust him to stay still like that. Would you bind him for us?"

"Yassa-miin," Jaffar calls to her, coos to her as if waking her up from sleep. "I hate to interrupt you, my sweet, but would you do the honours?" he grins, his eyes crooked from mirth as he lifts her head from his groin. "Please."

Yassamin smiles back at him and moves her hair, already tangled, aside from her face. "Very well," she says and looks at Fadl. On a whim, she flicks her hand and now it is Fadl whose robe falls off; his cock swings in the air, hard and slick and bare, vulnerable in its need. All of him is now flushed with embarrassment as he kneels there; again, he squeezes his hands into fists, murmuring curses under his breath. And if he clenches his teeth any harder, he is going to chip them--God, these little fiends!

Yassamin smiles and turns to Zainab. "What sort of position do we want him in?"

Zainab casts aside her blouse, leans back on her elbows and makes a show of thinking, her legs crossed and her toes twiddling; measuring Fadl with her eyes, she tilts her head as if studying an exotic animal displayed for sale. "Back to how you were, I should think. On all fours. With your head and your genitals pulled back, so that your cock points between your legs--that's it, Yassamin, bend it back no matter how he winces--you've done this before!" Zainab laughs as they arrange him into their desired position, all purely by magic, not by chain or rope.

Even if Fadl is a little amazed as the invisible bonds come up to bind and support his body, he is not in the least bit surprised by the existence of such a spell: trust Jaffar to have taught Yassamin something like this, the old pervert, he thinks as his palms are fixed flat against the platform and his arse lifted. Soon, he crouches on all fours like a beast, his arse exposed, his cock and his balls pulled back between his legs by Yassamin's magical touch. All of him tenses as his cock is forced down the way Zainab had instructed; he has at times pressed it down when masturbating, this is true, but never like this, never this steady pressure. The ache is a strange mixture of pleasure and tension, his cock hardening further in its bonds as it struggles in vain to lift itself against his belly. But now that it is unable to do so, the tension spreads into his thighs, climbs up his spine and strains his shoulders: how he is going to be able to stay like this for long, he has no idea. 

Already he regrets what he has done; already he thinks of--no. He mustn't beg for mercy yet, he thinks and swallows; has he ever retreated on a battlefield, ever humiliated himself by surrendering? No, he hasn't; his men have always had to drag him away even from the most doomed of skirmishes, some suicidal demon in him hurtling towards his own destruction. Never has he been the one to first cry for mercy; always, he had been the lone madman still hacking and slashing like a berserker even when the battle had been lost. 

And it is a pair of berserker eyes that now regard him past Yassamin's shoulders, wide and blue and cruel. Yassamin and Jaffar know nothing of the ways of Zainab's people in war, only Fadl having fought the insane Northmen--and their insaner shieldmaidens--first hand. He knows what he is up against, and this is the exact reason he now shivers; even if to Yassamin, this seems to be but sweet play. 

Yassamin, oh, sweet Yassamin, always so gentle even in her binding of him: she never takes her golden eyes from his, never ceases to smile charmingly as she so handles him, weighing his flesh in her hands: _My worth is being measured, so help me God,_ Fadl thinks, full of terror and awe. 

Gently, Yassamin lifts his jaw, an invisible force at the back of his head pulling it up so that he rests in a comfortable position, able to breathe--and most crucially--see clearly. 

"There we are," Yassamin says and lets go of him with a little kiss upon his cheek.

Jaffar but lies there and observes the play, relaxed in his nakedness, his cock hard upon his belly. "Are we ready to begin?" he finally asks.

"We are," Zainab says. "However, I would you stirred our flames a little first," she says. "Showed him how it's done," she purrs as she goes on all fours right in front of Fadl; she has left her split shalwars on and now pulls them open so that the black silk frames her full buttocks beautifully. She rearranges the silk, ruffles it so that now Fadl can barely see anything of her apart from the round white mountains of her arse and the lush, soft fruit that lies between them.

"You devious little bitch!" Fadl snarls, but the invisible bonds hold him fast. For now, Zainab's cunny is but inches from his face, its scent stronger than ever in his nostrils, and he cannot touch his cock--oh, but he aches, his flesh screaming to pounce her right now. 

Zainab's cunny, this cunny that he has dreamt of for months, this cunny he could never get enough of during their all-too-brief affair. Never has he seen a woman with such a perfectly symmetrical, fat mound, with lips so plump they invite the mouth and the fingers to press and to knead and to suck--is this some child's atavistic memory of dough? he thinks hysterically. So much he wants to manipulate, play with this soft white flesh, worry at it with his fingers, suck at it with his lips. What a ridiculous image, but then, does Jaffar not call Yassamin's own a piece of marzipan? 

And speak of the delicacy: now, Yassamin follows Zainab's example and bends over next to her, so that Fadl has not one but two cunnies teasing him, two lush peaches gleaming with nectar only inches from his mouth. Whereas Zainab's folds are pursed out from between her cunny's lips like a pair of fleshly petals, Yassamin's are hidden until she spreads her cleft, or until she is driven so mad from her arousal that her cunny swells to twice its size. This, Fadl remembers from their tryst in Baghdad, remembers how only anal coitus had made her cunny unfold itself like this; now, his mind is filled with wild visions of what she must have been doing before coming here. Both women smell clean, so they would have been washing as well; but did they play together? Did they shave each other's cunnies, the way they now shine from their smoothness, as sunlight strikes the streaks of sweet sap glistening upon their white and their red and their pink? 

Fadl cannot help but groan; he knows this sound for one of a man desperate, but already he is pushed beyond shame. "You are evil. Wicked."

Yassamin looks up at Jaffar, who is now kneeling between both women, caressing their backs. "I don't like your brother's tone, my sweet. He calls us evil and dogs? Methinks he has forgotten what he is here for."

"Indeed," Jaffar says and caresses the small of Yassamin's back, Zainab's, his fingertips drawing soft calligraphic curlicues in downs the colours of gold and dusk. "But you _did_ mean those words as compliments, brother, did you not? Hmm?"

Fadl swallows. "Yes," he mumbles, his cock straining against its bonds, his balls aching as if heavy stones inside a pouch inflamed. "I beg for your forgiveness, my ladies."

"That's more like it," Zainab purrs; her cunny clenches visibly as Jaffar rolls a fingertip across her anus. "Oh, but that feels wonderful, my pard. Do continue."

 _My pard._ She never had a pet name for _him,_ Fadl thinks; now his erection is half that of fury. Oh, if he could but spring free, he would screw this little harlot through the platform--

 _Careful, brother,_ Jaffar warns him telepathically, with a raised eyebrow. _My wife has excellent hearing, remember?_ he tells him; as if to show he is being merciful to Fadl, he sucks upon one finger and plunges it into Yassamin's arse straight away, making her jerk and howl, distracting her so that she will not hear Fadl's foul thoughts.

"You are beautiful," Fadl murmurs at the women, then, forcing himself into adoration instead: and since this is not a lie, saying this comes easily to him. _Concentrate, you wretch, concentrate!_ he thinks at himself; he must focus his mind on but the worship of these women, and perhaps then will he be set free, allowed release. "Both of you, my ladies; both of you."

And it is now that Zainab lets out a choked cry as Jaffar hooks a finger inside of her anus, too: both women must have prepared themselves well for Jaffar to enter them with such ease. She moans into her crossed arms, in concert with Yassamin as they are now both played by Jaffar with the same ease with which he had played his musical instruments. 

And this display is indeed majestic, the most erotic thing Fadl has ever seen in his debauched life, he has to admit: Jaffar, erect and proud, driving two such formidable women to madness with but one finger working slowly inside of each. He tugs upon the women's arses, stretching their muscles so that each one gapes a little: Fadl practically drools as he measures the rim of each arse, both of them raised from sodomitic play, each the sort of thick ring of flesh that feels exquisite around a penetrating cock. Fadl is lost imagining the drag and the pull and the squeeze of such rings: the way they clench and squeeze similarly around Jaffar's fingers, now; clutching him, hungry to be filled. Pink, their little gapes heave slick and gleaming from oil, both women trembling openly, their cunnies clenching involuntarily as Jaffar pleasures them with the skill of his hands, driving both women to the brink of madness in but moments.

And now, it is Yassamin who cries out, a bead of her sap dangling from her cunny and falling onto the cushions as the result of one such convulsion. Zainab, in turn, is already masturbating wildly, hissing through her teeth as she strokes herself, the red peak of her clitoris swollen and thick, the same size as her tiny little finger's tip. She is moving her hips back into Jaffar's hand, fucking herself upon him, and once Jaffar pushes another finger into her arse she keens, howls, all of her flesh jiggling, trembling, taut from her need. 

"Should I let you come?" Jaffar asks casually, cruelly pulling his fingers out of Zainab to give them a little suck before he returns them to her service. Revulsion curls in Fadl's belly at this disgusting Byzantine perversion of theirs, but his prick isn't listening; now, he drips as much as Yassamin does, his cock pulsing as he imagines the salty must of Zainab's taste. 

"You're--" Zainab groans into the cushions, "serving me, remember?" she says, frantic as she takes herself upon Jaffar's fingers, her hand flying on her cunny with such fury that all her fingers are glistening. "Fuck me," she barks. "That's an order."

Jaffar raises his eyebrow at Fadl. "Not very ladylike of her, but I will forgive her that under such _duress_ ," he says, his voice insufferably smug. "Come, then, my proud beast; let us see you undone."

And never taking his fingers from Yassamin's arse, Jaffar opens Zainab, opens her so that Fadl can now see _inside of her flesh;_ Zainab howls, tosses as Jaffar pushes three fingers of his hand in to the knuckle, fucking her with them as if they were a prick. And it is then that Zainab begins to trickle from between her fingers, spray; her wails are suffocated by the brocade and the velvet as she ejaculates so violently drops of it fly into Fadl's eyes. 

Fadl cries out in indignation, in humiliation, but he hates himself for loving this, too: now, it is he who joins in with the joyous noises, extending out his tongue so that he can catch some of her drops, savouring them a nectar. She tastes salty, sweet with the tiniest of sour tangs, absolutely delicious; she continues to unravel upon Jaffar's hand, wringing herself into a massive orgasm so, so fast that Jaffar cannot help but laugh.

"If it weren't I myself doing this, I would say this was unbelievable," Jaffar laughs, shaking his head. Once Zainab slides off his fingers, slumps onto the cushions and groans, he again takes his wet fingers into his mouth and sucks upon them avidly. One by one, he relishes their taste and huffs around them, his nostrils fluttering, his cock swaying and painting his belly at his delight. 

Fadl makes a face, lets out a smacking groan of disgust even as his cock pulses at the sight, his balls lifting in their sack.

"I know what you're thinking, brother," Jaffar says, mock-kindly. "I will save a taste for you later, worry not."

"What makes you think I want--" Fadl starts, but Jaffar silences him with an eyebrow. _You do. Lie not._

Fadl has no answer to that, so he changes the subject. "Isn't my lady Yassamin feeling neglected?"

Yassamin turns to look at Fadl over her shoulder, still rubbing herself, rocking herself lazily upon Jaffar's hand. "I think your mouth needs to be put to better use, brother-in-law," she laughs. 

And before Fadl can protest, she has pushed her cunny to his mouth. "Suck," she and Jaffar tell him as if from one mouth, and what choice does he have? It is not as if this is a task unpleasant, apart from Jaffar's fingers poking into his eyes as he keeps on fingering Yassamin's arse--and Fadl does not want to close his eyes because the sight is most beautiful. Yassamin's cunny may not be as fat as Zainab's, but it is absolutely divine in its petite sweetness, and now its petals have unfurled to make it even prettier, enticing him a flower to a bee, begging for his kiss. Her clitoris gleams a dark red as she pulls its hood back with her fingers; with a delighted moan, Fadl closes his mouth around it and sucks. 

It is clear Yassamin has not had a rough suck since the last time Fadl had given her one, so he proceeds to remind her of how much she had enjoyed it the last time: again, he uses his trick of pressing his teeth into her flesh, into the very root of her clitoris as hard as he can without bruising. He frames her clitoris with his teeth and then applies a violent suck, a suck as hard as he is capable of, alternately tightening and loosening the pressure with his mouth as if he were fellating a miniature prick. 

And oh, but the noises with which he is rewarded, as Yassamin lets out a terrified shriek, yet trembles against his face, her cunny pulsing and trickling onto his moustache! She is near the brink, she must be, her fluids voluminous, a little sweeter than Zainab's in their sugar as they flow out around Fadl's sucking lips. Jaffar, too, can tell she is near, and now he spits shamelessly onto his sodomising fingers, the whiteness of his spittle dancing like sparks in Fadl's eyes as he dizzies from a lack of air. But he daren't stop now, oh, no, no; on and on, he keeps on sucking this delicious, sweet little bud of flesh like candy, Yassamin's sap his reward. 

But he is rewarded with more than what he usually reads as a woman's release, a sight strange, yet immeasurably pleasing to the eye. Because now, as Yassamin comes, all of her undone upon Jaffar's fingers--now three--hooking in her arse, the mouth of _her vagina itself_ gapes, then purses itself shut. And as another convulsion wracks her body, it gapes again, just like an arse after it has been fucked; her cunny repeats this unfurling and closing motion at each one of her tremors until they finally ebb and die, the extent of her pleasure again made a secret as it vanishes into the depths of her flesh. Fadl is astounded at this, losing his rhythm for a moment as he watches her opening and closing thus: never has he seen the like, but what else can this be but the sign of a woman experiencing pleasure to the full capacity of her flesh? A woman so well-loved by his brother, so well-versed in the arts of love Jaffar has painstakingly taught her during their marriage that her flesh is this liberated, this joyous at its taking, reacting with more passionate abandon than any woman Fadl has ever seen?

But then Fadl cannot marvel any more, as Yassamin is spraying his eyes, his nose, his moustache and his beard, sending him sputtering; still, persistently he keeps on sucking her, drinking in this amazing passion of hers with noisy slurps, gladly letting her ravish his mouth with a cunny so incredibly, marvellously keen. He serves her as long as she demands it of him, as long as her moans make her cunny tremble against his sucking lips, as long as she keeps pounding her hips into the bones of his face. Her ejaculate flows gloriously down his neck and onto his chest, dripping down his nipples; he has never felt as debauched in his life--and to think that they have only just started!

Finally, Yassamin, too, falls groaning onto the cushions. Fadl gasps, pants, strings of her fluids thick and thin and white and clear dangling off his mouth, his beard, his jaw. Festooned with her pleasure, dizzied from his exhaustion, he is blind, he is breathless, he is blind--

And it is then that Jaffar kneels down to kiss from his lips those garlands salty and sweet, spooning them out of his mouth with his tongue; with his wet hand, he strokes his own cock as he so eats his wife's orgasm from his brother's mouth. And Fadl cannot resist Jaffar, his jaw so sore his mouth remains wide open for Jaffar to devour; he but rests there in his bonds, breathing heavily in his surrender, helpless as he is taken. 

"Beautiful," Jaffar murmurs into his mouth, cupping the back of his head with his hand, drawing him into a deep, tender, languid-tongued kiss; "beautiful, my brother, so beautiful."

***

What happens next is like a dream unto Fadl, a marvel and a wonder: he no longer strains against his bonds, no longer struggles, but feels a most marvellous ease in being held in position like this. There is an ache in his genitals, but it is a stilling ache, and now he understands the calm that comes upon animals as they are stilled and restrained with lip-irons and nose-rings. He is calm and he is still, and he is but an observer, now; it is his brother's mind that he now feels as keenly as his own, Jaffar's joy as he falls into Yassamin's loving embrace.

Jaffar must have accomplished this telepathy through some demonic trickery; Fadl has never felt what Jaffar feels in such a profound manner, only having received words and messages from him, not physical sensations. But now, it is as if he were inside of Jaffar's body, sucked into it, loving Yassamin as Jaffar loves her. Having his consciousness pulled from his body and planted in another's like this should terrify Fadl, but now he is too drunk on Yassamin's kisses to care: she draws her husband unto herself with silent need, Jaffar answering her with equal silence, using but his touch and his eyes to speak with her the poetry of love. Even Zainab stills for a moment as they witness this joining of lovers, none of them uttering a word, words having become impossible in this moment.

 _Take me, husband,_ Yassamin thinks, and they all hear it in the cupping of her hand upon Jaffar's prick, upon the soft wetness of her mouth suckling upon his tongue; _take me, consume me; then I shall let you do what you please with the others. This need in me is too great for my body to contain any longer; husband, please._

 _Then, I shall sate your need, my sweet, I shall; worry not,_ Jaffar thinks back at her with his thighs parting hers, with the weight of his body pressing her into the cushions, calming her and stilling her. _Oh, but you are so open for me, so soft, so wet--_

And all the hairs on Fadl's body stand on end as he feels it, experiences it as if he were sitting within Jaffar's flesh: Yassamin's cunny sliding open to enfold Jaffar's cock, the soft and wet and hot flesh heavy from blood, squeezing around him as she takes him inside of herself. The groan that vibrates in Jaffar's chest as the plump, smooth lips of Yassamin's sex come to nestle against his own equally bare pudendum, his sack; that little restlessness as Yassamin slickens her vulva with her hand, holds herself open for Jaffar to find an agreeable position from which to take her. And oh, the sweetness of how--seemingly involuntarily--her cunny clenches around this stretch, the rippled inner surfaces of it massaging his cock sweetly, like the inner surfaces of a pomegranate. 

_Yes, I remember that time, too,_ Jaffar thinks at Fadl. _That time we made that contraption out of cloven pomegranates, supposedly exactly like the feel of a real woman's innards, to see if Mohammad would fall for it._ An early work in Jaffar's engineering career, a pouch designed so that the carefully opened pomegranates inside of it would mimic a cunny--Mohammad had just reached puberty and had been removed from the harem to live on the men's side of the house, which meant being exposed to the most appalling of pranks by his older brothers. 

_Yes, well, I do hope he has forgiven us, Fadl thinks back at Jaffar; his balls were stained red for a week!_

But now it is Yassamin that bursts out into laughter, having heard them: Zainab looks at them askance, until Yassamin glances in her direction, sharing the thought with her, too, the spell now allowing Zainab to join in. Zainab rolls her eyes and groans, shaking her head, but does not break the silence; she lays herself down beside Jaffar and Yassamin, idly stroking her cunny as she watches them at play. 

Yassamin sighs with delight and wraps her legs around Jaffar, angling her hips comfortably; Jaffar begins his lovemaking slowly, only nuzzling her face, his face barely touching hers. Despite all his arrogance and his impatience, even Fadl is humbled by the intimacy of the sight, being privy to something he had not witnessed that time Jaffar had shared Yassamin with him--for this seems to be closer to the way they make love when no others are present. The way Jaffar moves his hips in precisely calculated, dancer's arcs, the way Yassamin strokes herself with a rhythm that matches Jaffar's strokes, the way his nose glides against her cheek, the scratch of his moustache setting her nerves afire: all of these are to them a familiar dance, a dance they both know by heart and but add new flourishes to each time. 

And it seems to Fadl that Yassamin's consciousness bleeds through into Jaffar's, and Jaffar confirms that this is, indeed, the case. That for the past few years, their telepathy has matured to the point where her pleasure is his: that he reaps the rewards of each slow thrust and glide, each wetly rasped dirty word in her ear, the ripples of her flesh radiating not just around the length of his cock, but through his entire body as if he, too, had a womb. 

_There,_ Jaffar shows Fadl, _behold my ghost-womb,_ he pours into Fadl's mind a sparkling laugh, Yassamin's laugh of honey-wine; the head of his prick strikes behind her womb and all of him shudders, shivers cold and hot as he, too, is touched so deep, deep. _She is especially sensitive today, being near her bleeding,_ they both think at their audience, and into this thought, Zainab adds her delighted recognition. That it is not just her, then, but another woman who is also so open this time of the month that she would devour all flesh that came her way, her every nerve sharp and keen and vibrating; that feeling she could fuck the entire world and still be left yearning for more.

And now it is Jaffar's purring laughter that croons into Zainab's ear. _I **shall** fuck her for the whole world: but watch._

And now the sacred silence extends to their minds as well, and all is communicated through but sensation, touch, feeling: Yassamin's need is so great and the response of Jaffar's passion so violent that soon she sees nothing but him. And it is his sight that Jaffar now gifts Fadl with, again teaching him what awaits the man who takes his time with his mistress: he shows to him Yassamin's face underneath him, the face of a woman completely undone by love. 

For now, Yassamin's eyes are mad, wild, lost; her nostrils flared, puffing stray strands of her hair away from her nose. She stares into Jaffar's eyes, held in place without any psychic bonds as he drives his love and his might into her, taking his pleasure of her. She looks like a panicked gazelle, her eyes flicking back and forth, even more crooked now than they usually appear; a terrible, animal noise escapes from between her teeth as she nears the brink. Her thighs clutch at Jaffar's waist, her cunny fluttering around his prick as he deliberately stills for a second at the end of each thrust. But this goes beyond mere technique, for with each one of his movements and stillnesses, Jaffar is actively lapping up, scooping up her pleasure into himself, drinking up each wave of her euphoria as it passes through bone and nerve.

And he pours each wave back into her until these waves rise higher and higher, Yassamin charging each surge from his hips with her devotion, her absolute surrender, painting each wave with the myriad sparkling tones of her sobs, like light refracted through a prism into an explosion of colours. Jaffar the light, she the finely hewn gemstone he scatters his light through a rainbow, the way they say God's ever-emanating light is concentrated when it passes through a saint, so that through him people might better see this light. 

Yet never has Fadl seen anything the like of Yassamin's face as it is now, not even upon a fakir lost in union with his God beautiful and terrible: Yassamin's eyes widen, roll back in terror and awe as she is shaken by her love for Jaffar, by Jaffar's love for her, driven and pounded and beaten into every atom of her body by his loving thrusts. 

For a moment, Fadl thinks of interrupting them, pulling them apart with his words--calling out "You'll kill her!"--but he hides this thought from Jaffar, struggling against his reason to let them finish this lesson of theirs, even if it does look as if she is being slain.

Jaffar himself is all tremors, his mind focused on but serving his beloved, now; he reins in his body's reactions, closes the channels through which his seed would normally flow, for he knows he must save it for later. _I would feel but your undoing, my love, my sweet; that shall be more than enough for me for the moment, and but fortify me for further play,_ he laughs into her mind, nuzzling her face again, even as he increases the tempo of his thrusts. _Come for me, my honey-sweet, come, come; we will crest together, you and I; together shall we fall._

And at this, even upon the cusp of orgasm, Yassamin's heart is squeezed by a profound gratitude, awe at Jaffar's serving of them all like this. What has she done to deserve--

But then, the sparks he strikes from her womb blind her vision, the tidal wave of his love submerges her in its brightness and she has no more room for any doubt, any sorrow, any humility at all; she becomes but light. Oh, that flesh could become light, this Fadl had thought but another one of the Sufis' sayings; never did he imagine it could be experienced in one's marriage bed. And to think that it's not a shaykh, but his own little brother that now proves to him this, his scrawny little brother bookish, lascivious and cruel--never has he seen Jaffar like this, never has he known he could be like this. And that Woman could be like this, her flesh alive with love like this: he can swear that he can feel each individual ripple of that pomegranate surface of her, feel every pore of her skin sweating love, each gland now bathing Jaffar's cock, his sack with honey. 

The way Jaffar swims through this, with such pride for the ocean of love he has made of her--gladly, he shares all of this with Fadl, the minute trickles and spurts of her cunny upon his pubis, the way her very womb convulses over his cock if he but stays very still and feels for it carefully. The way he can feel Yassamin _breathing_ around him, her lungs pushing her innards down, and with it, her womb and her guts, her spasmed breathing another caress around his prick. The way her fingers slip in the sweat of his hair and in the wetness around the swell of her clitoris, the way her ankles beat upon his back as her convulsions peak and toss her upon his prick, the way her perfumed hair tickles his nose as he buries his face in her shoulder. 

_Home._ Jaffar is _home._ Home in her flesh, home in her love, and he shall not want; his sobs die into her moans growing louder and louder. And all through this, devotion and love and devotion and love and devotion and love echo from her mind into his, amplified within his being and then cast back into her, both of them bathing in absolute trust and sweetness, so much so that even in his trance, Fadl feels a terrible sting of jealousy in his heart.

And Jaffar is aware of this, even as he nuzzles Yassamin's face, takes her wet hand from her cunny and kisses it, rocking her in his arms. But he chooses not to share this jealousy of Fadl's with Yassamin, too much of a gallant to do so--this, too, he wants to be a lesson to his brother. That it is until the very end that he stays with Yassamin in her pleasure and beyond it, to make sure that he has sated her desire and that no ache of hers remains untreated, unmedicated.


	6. Chapter 6

"You truly are an athlete of love," Fadl murmurs at Jaffar once he judges it safe to break the silence. 

"I was thinking the same," Zainab sighs and stretches on the cushions a cat, tasting her own fingers and purring from satiation.

Jaffar but grins and blows hair from his face. "But look at the one who trained me!" he laughs, sliding out of Yassamin, seemingly with no frustration whatsoever at his unejaculated state. Rather, he smiles the same way Yassamin does, like a woman who has just had the deepest, most satisfying of orgasms; that femininity that has always been so prominent in him now made even brighter, his skin softer as if he had been made more womanly by the experience.

"So I take it that you were saving yourself for me, my pard," Zainab purrs flirtatiously, rocking her hips a little.

Jaffar makes a pitying croon. "You, however, chose to give yourself to your hand," he pouts. "That makes Fadl the only one of us who has had no release whatsoever," he says, nodding towards Fadl, but still looking at Zainab. "Methinks you should offer him at least a little pleasure, while I catch my breath." He stretches luxuriously and accepts the iced milk Yassamin now hands him with a kiss, emptying the entire glass in one gulp. "After all, taming demonesses is hard work," he says, but he makes a face as he realises he now has a sprig of mint caught in his teeth. "But," he says after he has managed to dig it out and toss it aside, "I do mean it. Do soothe my brother's heat a little, my good lady Zainab; I am sure he could do with something cooling himself."

"Cooling, you say?" Zainab says and turns her cruel eyes on Fadl, and now, Fadl's heart lurches: the warm embrace of the communion they had just been enjoying evaporates as Jaffar now releases them all from the spell, giving Fadl back to himself. 

His own cowardly, miserable self, Fadl thinks blackly, blasted by the desert wind of his self-pity, now that this sea of love he had swum in but moments ago is dried, leaving him heaving like a fish on dry land.

But Zainab expects an answer. Therefore, "'tis not too hot, my lady," Fadl tells her, licking his lips. "I can manage."

"We'll see about that," Zainab says and reaches into her toy-chest, her bare buttocks perched in the air as she investigates its contents; she is still wearing her split shalwars, deriving so much pleasure from flaunting her own beauty that she seems to prefer wearing them, even if they are now streaked with cunny-sap. But now, her buttocks jiggle merrily as she lets out a cry of delight, having found what she was looking for: she holds out the strangest of silver wands. "What do you think?" she asks Yassamin.

"I think it marvellous for the purpose," Yassamin says and takes it in her hands. It seems that this toy is familiar to her: it consists of an eight-inch silver rod with three silver eggs, each perched on top of another. It must be a variant of the types of plugs used to open boys for sodomy, Fadl realises, only tripled: his eyes fly wide from terror. 

"My ladies!" Fadl cries. "I am sure I can please you even without such contraptions--"

Yassamin and Zainab exchange glances, shaking their heads. "He does need cooling down," Zainab says and nods at Yassamin.

"I concur," Yassamin says. "It seems to me that taking down his heat is a medical _necessity._ " Presently, she takes the pot of ice they had used for cooling the drinks and plunges the wand straight into it. "It's made of a living silver, which I am sure you are familiar with from your brother's experiments," Yassamin says sweetly. "It will be cool enough in no time."

Fadl opens his mouth to curse the women into the lowest of hells, but Jaffar stops him with a raised hand. He takes a sip from his refilled glass, keeping Fadl waiting before he finally speaks. "Now, what do we say?"

Fadl makes his voice as sarcastic and as sugared as possible. " _Thank_ you, mistresses," he snarls. "You are _most_ kind."

Zainab nods with equal sarcasm. "You are learning. Besides, this toy is, in fact, incredibly pleasurable; personally, I do not think you deserve it. But a little bird told me you held a certain... fondness for me? Is that right?" she asks as she plucks the wand from the ice pot, holding it up and testing it with her fingers for coolness. She plunges it back in and turns to Fadl one more. "Speak when you are spoken to."

Fadl closes his eyes; yet they snap open immediately, only to reveal Jaffar pulling his thumb and forefinger apart in a spreading gesture, forcing Fadl's eyelids to part. 

"None of that," Jaffar says sternly. "You are lucky to have survived with your balls intact. Now pay for the privilege of her mercy, like the gentleman you should have been behaving like all along. And tell Zainab your heart's desire."

Zainab, damn her heart--is it as hard and as cold as the sapphires that now tinkle about her as she squats before Fadl, smirking at him, taking him by the beard-tip?

"Speak, my gallant."

Fadl gazes into her eyes, looking for that mercy Jaffar had spoken of; there is mirth in them at least, and desire, and an intelligence that frightens him to the core. "What would it please you to hear, my lady?"

Zainab's laughter rings like bells. "He truly _is_ learning! But no, come. Tell me about this infatuation of yours. I am but flattered if the rumours are true." 

"I am as you see me, my lady," Fadl says and swallows as Zainab strokes his chin, still holding on to his beard; "a slave to your will. Even if I were cut loose this very moment, I would still be in your thrall," he says, attempting poesy but fearing he sounds ridiculous. But before Zainab can whip him again with that laughter of hers, he decides to follow his statement with blunt honesty, brutality. It is what she respects, is it not? "That cunny of yours has cursed me!" he declares and glances between her legs. "You have marked me with it, poisoned me with it; ever since I tasted of its sap, it has sung in my veins and left me calling out your name in my sleep. And as you can imagine, I am unhappy about this, a man unhappy indeed."

"But you have many wives, concubines," Jaffar says, rocking his hips as he lies there, amused. "So many you cannot even remember their names. Is it true, then, that the love-sickness that had afflicted me with Yassamin here--the inability to enjoy others--has now taken a hold of you as well? Is it a family illness, perhaps?" he laughs.

"Aye," Fadl says, with as much contempt as he can muster, still looking into Zainab's twinkling eyes, the veins in his prick pulsing as she so gazes at him. "I would not have truly enjoyed Zahra; you were right to step in between us. Hell, not even Chinawomen's cunnies or boys' arses satisfy me any longer, with that squeeze still haunting my prick!" he spits, even louder now that Zainab is laughing at him once more. "Is this what you do to men, my lady? Do you detach that _thing_ from your hips and send it roaming out into the night, perhaps? Send a ghostly cunt all the way to Balkh to torment me at night? Answer me, woman!"

Zainab answers him with but a nuzzle of his face and a ruffle of his hair, her chuckle rippling down his face and his chest, sending shivers deep into his guts and to the very tip of his prick. "I _like_ you, Fadl, son of Yahya. It's been a while since I last made a man a raving lunatic," she smirks against his lips.

Fadl's prick twitches in its bonds, yearning to slap against his belly; his balls lift and tighten, the pain now becoming unbearable, as if Zainab were squeezing him by the sack. But it is only the touch of her lips brushing against his moustache that he can be sure of is not a ghost; it is but his own lust clutching at him thus and he wants to weep. He hates even the way his voice creaks, now, weak as he speaks, trying to brush his lips against hers. "Is this what you are, my lady Zainab?" he asks, forlorn, pleading for an answer, having only heard of such man-devouring ghoulesses in myth. "Is this it? Do you collect their bones in your crypt, all the men you've slain?"

Zainab glances over her shoulder at Jaffar. "I thought you _told_ him I collect women," she says with a smile. "The new Lesbos, did he not tell you that?" she says as she nuzzles Fadl again, gifting him with the softest of kisses, making his heart tumble in his chest. "You are an exception to my preferences, just as he is, my lord. Most of my reputation is but legend; it is women I debauch, not men."

"An exception?" Fadl asks, his voice weakening still, yet his heart picks itself up and beats louder, faster.

Zainab nods, tickling him underneath the chin; now, Fadl cannot hate it, cherishing even that as but another caress. "Mmm. You are not as feminine as he, but I seem to have a weakness for the sons of Barmak in general," she murmurs. "Where he is a cheetah, you are a sight-hound... both lithe and swift beasts."

Jaffar bursts into laughter, throwing back his head. "A sight-hound! Why had I never thought of that before? It is a most apt description."

But Fadl does not mind being called a dog, if it means he has finally earned a pet name in Zainab's heart; he is smiling, now, and Zainab is smiling back at him. Oh, but now he is ready for anything. 

"However, enough of endearments," Zainab says, still stroking Fadl's beard-tip between her fingers. "I still hunger, and I would you pleased me, son of Yahya," she tells him, pausing for a while to measure him, to dissolve him like salt in the sea of her eyes. "Ask me, Fadl," she finally says, softly. "Ask me what would please me."

“Pray, then, mistress Zainab,” Fadl asks, his voice cut by the sharp cruelty of her smile; “What would please thee?”

Zainab’s eyes narrow into slits and her pull on his beard tightens, tightens. “Your _pain._ ”

Fadl trembles, quiet until the twist of Zainab's hand makes tears spring to his eyes: Zainab rocks a little in her squat as she observes these tears, and Fadl can swear this is because her cunny is clenching, lifting in delight.

If it is his pain that she desires, all right; then, let her have it. Thus, he lets her drink his agony, imbibe it as she keeps on tightening her grip; he finds he derives a strange, new, twisted pleasure from the sharp sting of pain now radiating down his neck and into his heart. Never has a woman dominated him the way Zainab has done, and just as he had suspected a year ago, he secretly, perversely enjoys this; even if he is loath to admit it even to himself. But this new, sweet torture is far more than what she had given him the last time they had met, having been satisfied with but binding him, but taking him for a ride; this time, she is not sated merely with his prick. 

Oh, no, he laughs to himself. Tonight, lady Zainab wants nothing less than his _soul._

Presently, Fadl blinks, and with it, the tears of his pain finally fall free from his eyes; he is sure some of his beard-hairs have come off in Zainab's fingertips by now, yet he keeps on staring at her, obedient. Zainab's pupils widen as she twists her hand, now, twists it; his tears make her nipples harden and he feels a strange new pride in having made this happen.

"You cry very prettily," she says, her voice thick and rough like coarse honey. She extends her tongue and takes these tears with the rosy tip of it, her breath hot and sweet against his face; a little breeze flutters the curtains of the platform and with it, he can feel a string of his own sap lashing off his cock to meet his thigh. He shudders all over, blinking, his cock pulsing once more as her peach-soft cheeks brush against his; he cannot hold back a hard sob in his chest.

"Thank you, mistress," he but says, his tongue thick in his mouth.

"Good boy." She pats him on the cheek, her eyes lazy from desire. "However, I would see you reach a point where the pain is so great no more tears come. That is a level of pain I would be satisfied with; enough to purge you of your pride. Yassamin, would you help me a little?"

"Gladly," Yassamin says and picks up objects up from the chest of wonders; Fadl does not take his eyes off Zainab, and he could not do so in any case, for she is still holding onto his beard. 

And now, he can hear it: the swish of Jaffar's riding cane as Yassamin walks up behind him, wielding it with practiced skill, it seems; the cold touch of the silver wand against his anus. 

_God help me,_ he sobs within his mind, _God help me._

 _This is standard treatment for all of Zainab's lovers,_ Jaffar thinks at him breezily, washing his cock; Fadl had not even noticed he had gone to relieve himself.

 _Zainab's lovers. Her **lovers.**_

Fadl is her lover. He is her _lover,_ and as Yassamin starts to press the first bulb of the wand inside his arse, that's all Fadl can think of; he tenses like the hound they had called him, shivering in each limb.

_Her lover. Her lover. I am her lover._

Zainab lets go of his beard to lean back a little; she rubs her cunny more vigorously, now, allowing Fadl to feast his eyes upon its beauty, to saturate his nostrils with its scent. She runs her eyes across his long and lean muscles, lingering upon his thighs in particular. Those, he knows she likes, as so many women do, the thighs of a warrior who knows how to thrust on both battlefields: that of war and that of the bed. 

But his pride must have been visible upon his face again, as now Zainab slaps him to cast its demons out of him; she slaps one cheek, then the other, and as Fadl cries out and throws himself back, the first bulb of the wand slips inside of his body. He rears back and howls at the coldness of it, the stretch of it, the heavy wand hanging out of him like a silvern tail; Zainab nods and Yassamin strikes Fadl on the arse with the cane once, twice, thrice.

He can barely hear Zainab's voice from behind the haze of pain; Yassamin had struck him with no little force. 

"That's better," Zainab croons, taking him by the beard once more, but oh, oh, it is heaven: now, her fingers are smeared with her arousal, and he steals a lick of her sap off her thumb. Predictably, that earns him another slap, another three lashes: he is wordless from the pain, tossing in his bonds but he is reeling from delight, light-headed. His cock has never been this hard in the entire time they have been here; as Yassamin deals a few more blows with the cane, he sprays his thighs with sap on either side, and if she does this once more, he will come, oh, he will come all over his thighs--

"None of that," Yassamin says, having heard his thoughts: she squeezes his sack and he has the distinct sense of something being locked, a key being turned until something clicks. A psychic lock around his genitals, he realises, a magic spell to stop the channels of his pleasure, similar to what Jaffar had done to himself while taking Yassamin. "There," Yassamin says. "You will not come until she allows you to."

"Thank you, Yassamin," Zainab says with a smile. "Is the wand as the rest of his automatons?"

"How do you mean?" Yassamin asks and sets down the cane, now moving her hand to the flared end of the silver wand, rolling it inside Fadl a little, completely ignoring his moans. 

"In that it will obey thought."

"Oh, yes," Yassamin says, matter-of-fact, gesturing for Zainab to come and look. "Watch."

And it is at that that the wand pulls itself back to the widest part of the first bulb, making Fadl's eyes widen, making him shout; as Yassamin releases it, it plunges back in again to the second bulb's tip, sending him panting. Zainab lets out a laugh of delight, now delivering a few strokes of the cane herself; while Fadl is still in a daze from the pain, she manages to slide the second bulb inside of him with ease. Now, the cool bulbs frame his prostate above it and below it, heavy as they settle inside of him.

"And now? How does that feel, Fadl?"

His teeth chatter. "Cold."

Zainab taps his cock with the cane. "Yet you are rock hard," she tuts. "Is this, too, the sign of your love for me?" she croons, her voice laced with sweet mockery as she drags a glimmering string of sap from the tip of his prick with the cane. "Hmm?"

"Yes, my lady Zainab," Fadl rasps, defiant in his honesty; he hopes she takes pleasure in the pain he feels at the admission.

Zainab and Yassamin exchange glances; Zainab makes a proud moue as she returns to squat in front of Fadl. "This is most excellent. And how about now?" she says, sending a thought at the toy: now, it starts curling inside of Fadl, pressing on his insides so violently that he thinks he is going to wet himself right this moment.

"Mercy!" he cries.

"Whatever for?" Zainab asks, mock-incredulous.

"I am going to empty my bladder, if--"

"Then you'll just have to hold back, won't you?" Zainab says. 

And then she is kissing him, kissing him; he shouts as she guides the wand to enter him entire, three heavy yet pliant silver bulbs now pressing hard inside of him, curling and uncurling inside of him like an icy lover's fingers. His prostate, his bladder, all his glands are pressed, squeezed, massaged, yet he cannot come, cannot piss; Zainab sucks upon his tongue and drinks in his howls of anguish, her fingers sloshing in her cunny as she rides her hand. Like a wild beast, she devours him, monstrous in her greed, huffing and snorting as she fucks herself, snarling into Fadl's mouth; each one of his pain-tremors seems to be travelling through her body in turn, her soft skin soaking in the sweat of his face and his neck. 

With a keen of delight, Zainab pulls back, panting; a string of spittle hangs between her open mouth and his. She is trembling just upon the edge of orgasm, shivering with it, yet still holding back. 

"Now, stay still," she says, pulls her hand from her cunny and smears its wetness all over Fadl's face. 

He cries out in shock, in delight at this precious and marvellous gift, lapping at her hand, sobbing into it, snorting into it, his cock pulsing again and again: oh, but he loves this, now, hanging sweetly in this state of not being allowed release, being able to swim in pleasure without having to worry about coming. A strange new pleasure is she now teaching him, this enforced continence, but he discovers he likes it indeed: he always worries whether he will last long enough, whether his own body will rob him of a night of pleasure with a premature ejaculation, the fatigue that always follows it. 

But now, Zainab is taking his pleasure and spinning it to last on and on--oh, now his mind fills with wild dreams of pleasuring her all night and he shivers in delight, shivers.

Zainab slaps his cheek once more and pulls back, determined. "Jaffar. Show your brother the rewards he'll reap if he continues to behave himself."

Fadl gasps in air, licking in her spittle, licking his own cheeks, his moustache and his beard to catch the last of her cunny's taste; chills run up and down his body, each one of his muscles hot and cold and shivering at the same time. It seems Zainab has released his head, so that he can move it to better see what she is doing; grateful, he lets it hang for a while, his neck aching from the strain. 

And what he sees as he gazes between his legs makes his lungs stop, makes his belly dip: thanks to the women's invisible bonds, thanks to the toy massaging his prostate, his cock has now swollen to a size he's never seen it take on before. Grotesque, it points down between his legs a dark, angry red, completely smeared from when Yassamin had been stroking it, thick strings of his sap dripping onto the carpet, glimmering between his legs like a spider's web. 

And she who wove this web now takes her place in front of Fadl, kneeling as she displays her body for him to worship. Shameless, Zainab cups the fat lips of her cunny with both hands, displaying its full folds to him, pressing and squeezing her clitoris with her thumbs. She lowers her chin and pushes out her breasts, her sapphires dancing upon her neck and about her ears; now, Jaffar kneels behind her, slipping his cock between her legs.

"Show him," Zainab rasps as Jaffar comes up to kiss her neck, cup her breasts; "Show him what he would already have earned had he behaved well from the start."

Jaffar hisses and squeezes her breasts, no mere servant, now, but a master taking charge. "A wanton little _slut,_ that's what," he hisses, rutting between her legs, the tip of his cock gleaming wet from her cunny, the shaft of it swallowed up by the thick fat of her thighs. He pulls her hair back from her ear, undoing her necklace and tossing it aside. He breathes desire in her ear, scraping her neck with his moustache, promising pain with his teeth: "I am going to _fuck_ you." 

"Promises, promises," Zainab moans, reaching back to return Jaffar's kiss, grabbing at his arse with her hands; heated, frantic, she slaps and cups his flesh, squeezing his cock with her thighs. But it is then that he captures her hands; he locks them in place so that they clasp his hips and that she remains there, kneeling, her head bent back so that it lolls over his shoulder, staring up at the sky. Her skin breaks out in gooseflesh, the fat on her thighs and hips rippling as she shivers around him; she wails as he removes the heavy sapphire pendants from her ears, his lashes cast down as he traces their clips down her chest, down, down. It seems from her terror that she knows exactly what he is going to do with them, and this is made clear to Fadl soon enough: cruelly, mercilessly, Jaffar plucks and kneads and pinches at both of her shy nipples until they are teased out from their areolae, then clips a pendant around each.

Zainab mewls, but Jaffar sups her moans from her mouth, pushing his tongue into her very throat, deliberately choking her with it; brutally, he squeezes and kneads at her breasts from below, punishing them just as Fadl would punish her for her harlotry, for teasing men with their fullness so. He slaps and he claws at her breasts as she kneels there, trapped; now, he cups her cunny just as she had cupped it, with both hands, using his fingertips to massage her slit, to press the lips of her vulva hard around her clitoris. "I am going to fuck this fat little cunt," he snaps, thrusting faster between her thighs, mimicking a hard taking; "and then I'm going to fuck you in the _arse._ Fuck you like you deserve to be fucked, you little temptress; fuck you until you beg for mercy."

"I'd like to see you try," Zainab laughs, her defiance sparkling with a touch of madness; "have me, then, man-pard; drench m--"

But her words turn into a wail as Jaffar pulls back and sheathes himself in her cunny with one, brutal thrust. He snaps her free from her bonds, if only because of their height difference: he thrusts into her so that she is lifted off the ground by the sheer force of his hips, only his hands on her waist and chest keeping her from falling over. Zainab wails, limp as a doll at first, struggling to hold on: immediately, Jaffar proceeds to use her like one, moving her up and down on his cock, she so wet that she slides upon him easily. But his blows are cruel, terrible; the rolls of Zainab's belly tremble with each one of his thrusts and her eyes roll back in her head. Jaffar wraps one arm around her neck and hisses in her ear, one hand rubbing her cunny with merciless skill. "I never try, my sweet," he snarls. "If I want something, I _take_ it."

"Then take me," she hisses right back at him, nipping at his lips, kissing him so violently she draws blood; she pulls his head to herself, fucks him back with her hips like an animal in heat. 

And like an animal, she now falls onto all fours, tossing her golden mane, arching her back, offering her giant arse for the pounding; she is so wet that Jaffar's hips slap noisily into her as he takes her, his hair coming loose from his ponytail as he plows into her. "God!" he cries and smacks her arse, thrusting into her for awhile; but as soon as he's started, he stops: it is clear from his smile that he has just had a most marvellous idea. "Wait until I show you some _real_ magic, my little minx," he laughs, flips Zainab onto her back, and then he is gone.

He is gone. Jaffar is nowhere to be seen; Zainab but lies on her back with her legs spread, like a wrestler defeated. She looks around herself, stunned; Yassamin and Fadl exchange curious glances. 

Until the lips of Zainab's cunny unfold and she is thrown half a foot back on the rug, letting out a hideous wail. "Jaffar!"

"The one and the same," a triumphant voice cries, the unmistakable meaow of the man himself. "You wanted Fadl to see what he was missing out on; therefore, I am showing him _everything_. Isn't her cunny marvellous?" he asks with a breathless laugh.

And as Zainab swears, as Yassamin rolls her eyes, Fadl has to witness the impossible: his brother, turned entirely invisible, taking a woman before his eyes. The sight turns his stomach at first: Zainab's cunny is spread so open wide around the girth of Jaffar's cock that he has never seen the like, except on heathen statues of birth-giving goddesses; its folds are twisted and pulled open, its lips stretched and gleaming, drops of her sap flying out as Jaffar pounds into her, hitting her deep every time.

But there is a perverse satisfaction Fadl now gains from this, and while this serves Zainab's vanity, it also seems like a little revenge Jaffar's wrought on her for her pride: she has never been this naked before any man--that, Fadl is sure of. 

Yet, she immediately takes advantage of this situation and starts to perform as much as she can under Jaffar's ministrations: she moans and groans and hisses and kicks, making sure she looks as beautiful as possible as she is ravished by this invisible lover now writhing atop her. It is a fascinating sight: from the dips on Zainab's belly, they can tell where Jaffar's hipbones are pressing into it; his fingers and thumbs leave deep imprints into the soft flesh of her breasts. The striped fat upon her inner thighs wrinkles, is drawn up where Jaffar's waist moves back and forth between her legs; drops of her sap dangle from Jaffar's invisible sack. 

And oh, but the wetness of her cunny, its glimmer--Fadl can see how her sap _trickles_ out of her, pushed in and pulled out again with Jaffar's thrusts, glittering on the pinkness of her swollen, well-loved anus. And each time Jaffar pulls back, Fadl can see the inside of her cunny clenching, sucking, pulling itself up with the convulsions of her pleasure; it is a sight appalling and fascinating at the same time. So is this what happens inside of a woman's body when she is taken? Is this what it's like when a cunny clutches, clenches, unwilling to let go of the prick it loves? Is this how it trembles as it begins to unravel in orgasm? It astounds him.

It astounds him, for it is an open wound, yet a wound of love, and he is ashamed of his violence, now, seeing what a prick does inside a woman's body as it stabs in this bloodless assault. And yet, the miracle of this assault is in that it is bringing her but pleasure, for would Zainab not have protested already, cast Jaffar off herself were she truly in pain? No, no: her moans, her face, her cunny itself tell them she is consumed by pleasure and pleasure alone, excited by this lover whose actions she cannot predict. She clutches around her ravisher of air and aether, hugs him with her arms and her legs, throws her hips back into his thrusts; she stares up madly into this emptiness, at the Jaffar only her mind can see. "I am undone, undone; now, Jaffar, now, please--!"

And her cunny is flattened, smacked, slaps ringing in the air as Jaffar beats its plushness with his hips; "Come!" Jaffar cries, and now Zainab takes her hand to her clitoris and screams herself into release. She curls up underneath Jaffar, is tossed back into the carpet by him, her back lifting off it as she arches in her abandon, her wounded breasts pointing at the sky; and there, there, there comes the spray. She ejaculates violently, the stream of it splashing off the invisible Jaffar's belly, sluicing down it as if down a pane of glass: an unsettling, uneasy sight, but Zainab cares not. Her cunny opens and closes, squeezes and clutches violently in its uncontrollable convulsions, but the lips of it, the folds of it move more slowly: again, Jaffar is using his signature technique of pacing his blows, slowing them down for his lover's orgasm to flow. And once they reach the same rhythm, at the very peak of it all, he begins to plow the last ripples of her orgasm out of her, each one of his blows making another spray burst out of her cunny; he laughs and he laughs, damp streaks appearing upon Zainab's face as he licks her sweat off her cheeks, more wet streaks where his wet hair nuzzles against her neck. 

And then, he stays still; Zainab but lies there, her cunny an open cavern, its fat lips trembling and heaving around the invisible cock still holding it open. Her soft flesh ripples and jiggles underneath Jaffar as she lies there, panting; her arms fallen to her sides, her legs clearly cramping as she lets them unfurl from around him. Her breasts slide down the sides of her chest to nestle against her arms, the sapphires glittering upon them; Jaffar snaps them off, making her yelp and convulse one last time, a little wetness still slurping out from the inside of her cunny around his cock. 

"You're a demon," she slurs.

Jaffar is too out of breath to say anything; he but laughs.

Yassamin shakes her head. "That is how he wooed me, pretending to be a djinni in my garden, and I thought it but dreams and nightmares."

"I shall do this to you, too, should you desire it," Jaffar says to Yassamin, now, and judging by the noise Zainab now makes and the way her breasts flatten, he is resting his weight down atop her.

"But you still haven't come?" Zainab groans.

"Correct. I was aiming to come--here," Jaffar sighs and spreads Zainab's legs; she lets out a shriek and a wail and then goes completely quiet as her anus begins to expand and open, the ring of it moving back and forth upon Jaffar's invisible cock. 

Zainab gasps for breath, her eyes wide; she had wanted to be ravished, that is true. Fadl takes great delight in seeing her in such distress; all of her is shivering and stiff, she biting her lower lip, her forehead scrunched in a thousand wrinkles. 

"Please--" she cries, rubbing her cunny, still obviously in pain from the suddenness of this penetration. "Please. Gentle."

"Turn on your belly, my sweet."

Zainab looks at Fadl instead. "I have a better idea," she says and whispers into Jaffar's ear.

And it is at that that Jaffar laughs, Zainab's arse slides shut and Jaffar makes himself visible once more; they both advance upon Fadl and begin to arrange themselves upon him instead. Baffled, Fadl but lets Jaffar undo the invisible bonds, all except the ones around his genitals; they arrange him onto his back upon the carpet and begin to make love on top of him in the manner of animals, Zainab on all fours and Jaffar on top of her in a squat. This is to say, they are copulating right over his face: Fadl means to taste Zainab's cunny, but as soon as he attempts to do just that, he feels Jaffar's magic pinning him to the platform.

"Patience, brother," Jaffar says as he scoops up some of Zainab's wetness and uses it to slicken himself.

"And now I have to stare at your arse and balls!" Fadl cries as Jaffar begins to slowly take Zainab's arse.

"The object was for you to stare at her cunny. Just a moment ago, you saw nothing but," Jaffar laughs. 

"What's the matter?" Zainab asks as she peeks at Fadl from between her legs, smiling at him upside down as she settles into place, finding a comfortable angle from which to take Jaffar's cock. "Do you not find it beautiful?" she tuts.

"I do..." Fadl sighs. "But I would rather taste it," he says with such pure honesty that he hopes it would soften Zainab's heart.

"Mmm," Jaffar says, gathering Zainab's hair back, pulling her into a kiss. "You do spray even more violently when you come through the arse, do you not?" he croons. "Have you any nectar left?"

"I think I do," Zainab drawls and kisses him back; she rocks her arse onto him, squeezing her cunny so that a glimmering drop dangles from it, tantalisingly close to Fadl's face, now. "I am sure you could help me with that, my pard."

"Gladly," Jaffar says and rolls his hips; his balls are now so full and so high that magic or not, he cannot possibly last inside of her much longer. 

And it is then that Zainab remembers another is being milked here, too: she slips her hand between Fadl's legs and begins to stroke his cock. Oh, but the blessing of her hand, her soft, tiny, tight and plump hand is too much: Fadl arches off the carpet and cries out in despair, her touch like an electric shock to his sensitised, tortured, swollen cock. 

"Please, mistress," Fadl moans. "Hurry. For I fear you will do it damage." All those horror stories he had heard of old men who had bound their cocks to help their waning virility and had ended up damaging their pricks beyond repair--old man or not, he does not want to end up like that.

 _Dare you imply we know nothing about cock-binding?_ Jaffar laughs at him telepathically. _Yassamin and I are masters of the art. I myself have been binding mine since I was a youth, and look at it. Is it not majestic?_

 _Shut up,_ Fadl thinks at him, but he is not sure if Jaffar can hear him, or if he cares. _Mine is bigger than yours, and must be treated with care._

"Zainab," Jaffar croons in her ear, rocking his hips once more, pleasuring her with a slow dance inside of her, showing off to Fadl the length of his cock. For even if Fadl has an inch on him, it is _Jaffar's_ cock that now gets to enjoy the tightness of Zainab's flesh, the thick ring of it massaging him sweetly. "Methinks you should show Fadl a little mercy. By now, the wand will have cooled down and the fever is threatening to go into his head again and render him a madman."

"Mmm," Zainab replies, sighing as she rocks back onto Jaffar's cock, a new sweet wetness now glimmering upon the folds of her cunny, little beads of dew sparkling upon its petals in the afternoon light. She licks her palm and wraps it around Fadl's cock, rolling it sweetly. "Would a little moisture help ease your heat a little?"

"Oh--my lady--!"

But it is then that Zainab brings down her mouth and swallows his cock. Fadl shakes all over, clutching his hands into fists: he dances upon the very brink of orgasm, all his muscles clenching and twitching to produce an ejaculation, but the spell keeps him from being able to fall off the edge. He howls as his body lifts towards its release again and again, trembling without tumbling, surging up without bursting through--at the very last moment, all the tremors cease and all his fluids are pulled back into his body. A man can die from this, he has heard tell: retrograde ejaculation, being poisoned by his own seed, the life-giving particles of it starting to fester inside of him: horrid visions fill his mind, of his body beginning to rot this very moment, dying before his soul has left it. And now he knows he _is_ going mad. Just like Jaffar had said, the heat has travelled up his spine and rendered him a madman--

"Look, brother," Jaffar whispers, and he becomes invisible once more. "Taste this, and we will give you release; this is her will. This is what she wanted you to see, this is what she wants you to take," he murmurs and pulls back his invisible cock: Zainab's arse gapes beautifully, a wide red hole with its heaving pink walls. Specks of anal mucus, of foam, of oil glisten upon its inner surfaces, and now, hovering a few inches outside of it, the ring of these fluids formed around Jaffar's cock, hanging seemingly in mid-air around its invisible bearer. 

Zainab's mouth smacks off Fadl's cock, her hand pumping him with a practiced rhythm; he feels one magical strap fall off his cock, another. "The Byzantine pleasure, my proud beast," she murmurs across his cock, tracing her tongue around the flared head; "I would see you prove your adoration of me by tasting me on the inside, my sweet."

"Let me, then," Fadl rasps, and this happens to him naturally, beautifully, in worship rather than disgust: the bonds around his arms fall off as he guides his hands to his brother's invisible body, as Zainab leans forwards to better see them. Jaffar becomes flesh and blood once more, the prick that the white and gold and clear fluids now paint descending towards Fadl's lips. Zainab keens as she strokes her cunny, as Jaffar pushes three fingers inside of her arse to make up for having deprived her of his cock; she pants against Fadl's cock as she watches. 

With a soft lick, two, three, Fadl guides Jaffar's cock into his mouth, and he sobs around it, weeps, pulses into Zainab's stroking hand: because of course, she tastes _delicious._ Delicious, delicious, but salt and sweat and oil and must and cunny and metal and love, oh, love; he rolls his head, sucks, slurps, and now it is Jaffar who cries out, his face helpless, his eyes wide as he is so tasted. He trembles upon the brink, too, and as the first splash of his ejaculate hits Fadl's throat, he cries out, pulls out swiftly and slides himself inside Zainab's arse once more. Jaffar roars and jerks Zainab to himself by the hips as he surges inside of her, beating her with his hips so hard that he would bruise a woman slighter; Zainab is herself plunged into release as she screams around Fadl's cock, swallowing it once more. Deliberately, she chokes herself upon it, her throat spasming around Fadl's cock, her arse spasming around Jaffar's; Fadl's arse clutches around the wand and he is free, free.

A chain reaction, they tumble into release like dominoes: Zainab the greediest of them all, sucking in Jaffar's sperm, Fadl's. Fadl lets out high cries, desperate cries as he clutches Jaffar's thighs and spends himself in Zainab's mouth; he tosses up, thrusting brutally into her throat, knowing this makes her cunny and arse clench even tighter in her orgasm. And Jaffar reaps the greatest benefits from this, wailing as Zainab squeezes around him, milking him dry. He has held back for so long that he keeps on coming for long moments, with such volume that soon Zainab's arse is slurping with it, farting out his come; Zainab but chuckles around Fadl's cock at the noises, shameless.

In fact, now she pulls back from Fadl's cock and laughs out loud, her mouth glistening from Fadl's sperm; as Jaffar pulls out of her, her laughter makes Jaffar's seed burst, sluice out of her arse onto Fadl's face. Oh, but Fadl had been expecting this, he cannot lie. Out of sheer defiance, out of a desire to prove he is just as perverse as they are, he buries his face in Zainab's arse and _slurps_ out his brother's come, slapping Zainab's cunny as he goes, growling into her arse.

And there, they fall into a merry, laughing pile of sweaty, tangled limbs, clenching and jerking and cramping, smeared all over with cunny and come. Zainab lies upon her belly as Jaffar and Fadl pillow themselves upon her hips and legs; lazily, Jaffar feeds Fadl the rest of his sperm from Zainab's arse, hissing, his cock still twitching a little as Fadl bites his fingers. 

It is then that Fadl feels a twinge in his arse: the toy. It curls inside of him and he glares at Zainab, but she looks at him askance: it is not she, but Yassamin who now comes to embrace him from behind. "Now. Have you learned your lesson?" she asks as she hugs Fadl from behind and kisses his cheek. 

Of course, Fadl immediately wants to answer "No," but Jaffar silences him with a glare.

"I know what you're thinking, brother. Being a bastard does not mean more orgies, however. Consider this an act of mercy on my women's part."

" _Your_ women's?" Zainab sputters.

Jaffar raises his hands to the sky and rolls his eyes. "I apologise."

"Methinks it's time for you to teach _him_ some manners next," Fadl murmurs, kissing Zainab's hip; he then turns to Yassamin. "But what about you, my dear? I didn't get to pleasure you much."

"You think not?" Yassamin says and slaps him on the welts she had created. "I think I shall remember these welts fondly for a long time to come, brother-in-law. I had wanted to do that to you for an age."

Zainab stretches and crawls to the ice cabinet. "Is there any milk left?"

Jaffar flops down onto the cushions. "Insatiable. I pump her full of it and--"

"Nevermind milk, is there any wine in there?" Fadl says, crawling to the ice cabinet with Zainab.

Zainab, who has indeed discovered a bottle of wine, holds it out of Fadl's reach. "None for you tonight. You are still on probation."

Fadl makes to whine, but Yassamin smacks him on the arse, making the wand hook inside of him once more. "And that thing is going to stay inside of you for a while. Do you truly think we are done with you yet?"

Fadl looks at the women, then Jaffar; Jaffar but shakes his head. "Their word is law today, I am afraid."

"May I, then, _humbly,_ request but a moment's respite? To gather my strength to better pleasure you, my ladies?" Fadl asks.

Zainab's answer is but a weary groan. She throws herself down onto the cushions with a glass of milk and weaves her hand in the air. "Respite granted. I need a breather myself."

Yassamin laughs and pours Fadl a glass of milk in turn. "Here. To replenish the milk you have lost."

"You are very kind."

Jaffar kneels behind Fadl and tucks his chin over his shoulder. "Throw some extra mint into it, will you, Yassamin? And saffron. He'll need all the aphrodisiacs he can get," he says and pats Fadl's prick.

Fadl rolls his eyes and groans.


	7. Chapter 7

They spend the rest of the afternoon in a mood calmer, gentler, friendlier; the time of prayer passes them by, but even after washing, none suggest withdrawing to pray, not even the usually pious Yassamin. On the contrary, they all drink in Zainab's heathen licence as if she were the mistress of this feast, observing her carefree custom instead. This means they choose to remain in the garden, wrap up in silks and indulge in drinks, whiling the day away in idleness; all loath to leave this safe haven of sensuality Jaffar has created for them. The light is gentle and the clouds peek pink through the canopies, a little breeze rustling through the apricot trees as the day moves towards the evening. It is an evening warm, balmy, fragrant, this peace perhaps brought on by Jaffar's magic, too--he's always had a love for surrounding his amorous encounters with romantic atmospheres, Fadl thinks; he had always wanted everything to be perfect whenever he was playing the lover, whether it was to his wives or mere slave boys.

Grateful for this, Fadl rests his head upon Zainab's hips, nuzzling into the plush pillow of her cunny, she now finally having removed the rest of her clothes. "What's the Northmen's Paradise like?" he asks. "Is it anything like this?"

"Which one?" Zainab asks, sipping her milk.

Fadl blinks. "You have two?"

"Many different afterlives. Hells, heavens. If pressed, I would choose Freyja's," she says. "Our Venus, that is. A vast hall within a vast ship, an endless feast of love and merriment."

"Did you hear that?" Fadl says to Jaffar, who now lies pillowed upon Yassamin in a similar manner. "A heaven run by Venus! Methinks I shall convert."

Yassamin rolls her eyes and mumbles a prayer, casting a banishing sigil in Fadl's direction. "No such talk!"

"There, there, my dear," Jaffar says and pats her arm. "I know some philosophers would say they are but different names for the same things. Pray, is her description that different from Paradise, with its rivers of wine and its houris, pages?" 

Fadl frowns. "Do you have pages in this Paradise of Venus, then?"

Zainab laughs and strokes Fadl's hair. "Only the boldest of warriors, my love. Freyja chooses half of the slain after each battle; I am sure she picks only the most handsome ones."

"Which means you'll have no chance of getting there, what with your beak," Jaffar quips casually, sipping from his glass. "No, no, my brother; I suggest you stick to the true faith instead."

"Why, you--!" Fadl makes to give Jaffar a good box on the ear, but Zainab restrains him.

"I see you have regained your strength, my sight-hound," Zainab says, "and with it, your belligerence." She pokes Fadl in the ribs. "Methinks it's time we cast out the rest of your demons. What do you think, Yassamin?"

"Aye," she says, tying Jaffar's hair back with a leather thong. "What say you, my dear?"

Jaffar glances down at his cock. "He is a little sore, but never let it be said I do not love my brother," he says, now more warmly. "I'm sure I can deliver an exorcism."

"Then, hold him still," Zainab says and whispers something in Jaffar's ear; his eyes light up with wicked glee.

"What have you planned now, you little vixen?" Fadl grumbles.

Jaffar comes to kneel behind Fadl, sliding off the silk robes they had both been wearing. "It is her plan that I should restrain you while they warm up a little," Jaffar says and kisses his neck. "So that you will not interrupt their play."

Meanwhile, Zainab now kneels face to face with Yassamin, nuzzling her nose with hers. "It would not be a true feast of love had I to go without the touch of a woman," she now whispers, lacing Yassamin's fingers with hers. "I have missed you, my gazelle," she says with genuine tenderness.

Yassamin brushes her lips against Zainab's, trembling a little from excitement: this is still a rare treat for her, lovemaking between women. Whereas Zainab gets to enjoy it as often as she wants with her girls, Yassamin gets to indulge only rarely; it's been months since she'd last felt the touch of a woman, Jaffar now tells Fadl telepathically. 

"I am not protesting in the slightest," Fadl says as he and Jaffar both sit down upon soft cushions near the women, Jaffar still holding him from behind. "It is a sight rare to mine eyes as well." And to think that two of the most desirable women he has ever met are now the ones caressing each other!

"Tell them," Jaffar laughs, having heard his thoughts. "All women deserve to be told."

"What's that?" Zainab asks as she pulls back from a kiss, pillowing her head upon Yassamin's breasts.

Fadl relaxes into Jaffar's embrace, cupping Jaffar's hand over his slowly hardening cock. "It is only that you two are the most beautiful, most desirable, most sensual women I have ever met," he says warmly. "Baltic amber bejewelling the firm bosoms of Babylon, the supple willow bent sweetly about the whiteness of the birch; dark, glistering honey swirling into cream golden from butterfat... my ladies, if I didn't know better, I would have thought you a mirage, a cruel illusion wrought by this crafty wizard here!" 

"Honey and butterfat!" Yassamin throws back her head and laughs. "He _is_ learning. If it is but the sight of us embracing that turns him into such a silver-tongued charmer, this is what we should have started the day with!"

Zainab, her eyes slitted with desire, rocks Yassamin in her arms, kissing her face, her breasts, stroking her hips. "Nonsense. Such sweetness is always best enjoyed as dessert," she says and slides down to mouth Yassamin's sex. "Now, about that dark honey..." 

With a yelp, Yassamin lets herself be pushed down onto the cushions: like a ravishing youth, Zainab spreads her legs with practiced ease and lies down to feast upon her cunny. 

"God!" Zainab groans, smacking her mouth after but one kiss; "it still _is_ as sweet as sugar."

And now, Fadl's prick has hardened in Jaffar's cupping hand; he can feel his brother's erection against the small of his back. But neither man moves from his position, determined to enjoy the rare, exquisite play now unfolding before them.

And it is strange that Fadl should feel that this sight was holy, yes, holy in its purity: at times, he has asked for his slave girls to play with each other to pleasure his eyes, that is true. But to now witness a love genuine between two women, an exchange of true tenderness, two true desires entwining: yes, it does melt his heart, this softness upon softness softening him in turn. Such is the skill and the delight with which Zainab now takes and pleasures Yassamin's cunny: Jaffar gives Fadl tastes of Yassamin's sensations and strokes him, rocks against him, sharing flashes of her pleasure with him just as Yassamin shares herself with her husband. Now, Fadl feels but privileged to be a part of this circle of love, and his chest aches, aches; entranced, he gives himself to Yassamin's sensations.

It is as if he had a cunny, too, a cunny soft and already a little sore as Zainab's plump little fingers push into Yassamin's; he, too, shivers a little as Yassamin does, shifting upon the cushions as Zainab seeks those spots inside of her flesh that bring her the most pleasure. And it is not just one part of her, but several that Zainab now begins to manipulate: at first, it seems that Yassamin enjoys being massaged from behind her clitoris, from behind her pubic bone, but very soon, she hisses, twitches, finding herself too sensitive there after all. And it is recognition that now flashes in Zainab's eyes, a little heureka as she turns her hand and points her fingers downwards. Smiling, she advances to the very back of Yassamin's sex, to the small cavern behind the womb and the web of sensitive nerves that await her there: Yassamin's eyes fly wide and she shrieks through her nostrils, Zainab laughing around her clitoris, the ripples of her mirth bringing Yassamin even further waves of pleasure. 

"Yes, that's right," Jaffar grins, licks his hand and begins to stroke Fadl in earnest. "You _do_ remember. She loves it at the very back."

But Zainab is so skilled that Yassamin is no longer listening to Jaffar at all: "More!" she cries and tosses back her head, desperate. "Oh... the jade. Please. You are so good, you are so good, but I need to be filled--I'm so sorry--"

"No apologising," Zainab laughs and slaps Yassamin's cunny, slaps it once, twice, thrice until Yassamin squeaks. She reaches for the toy chest and lifts out a phallus made of jade. "Is it this gentleman that you want?"

 _Practically a wedding gift from me,_ Jaffar sighs happily into Fadl's mind; _I gave her that little fellow early on in our marriage and they have been inseparable since._

"Yes," Yassamin says and bites her lip, delicious as she lies there, her golden eyes narrowed from lust. She spreads her legs and the men get to enjoy the sight for a while, Zainab deliberately tarrying to tease Yassamin a little. Oh, but how sweet Yassamin is in her surrender, how skilled in the way she now looks up at Zainab with pleading eyes: all the years she has spent in Jaffar's bedchamber have taught her the art of submission well. She knows how to please a lover who enjoys dominating his--or her--mistress, knows what sorts of sights such a lover enjoys, and now offers them to Zainab and the men. 

Thus, she reveals to them her vulnerability in full, so that she might seduce them heart and soul, openly displaying the beautiful split peach of her cunny, gleaming there in the afternoon light: it is only half the size of Zainab's, like a child's in comparison, even if she is the taller of the two women; its petite, rosy blush so delicate Fadl is now reminded of that time she could not take him inside of herself without pain.

Thus, as Zainab finally starts to slide the jade cock inside of Yassamin, Fadl even winces--the strangest of things, as he has never truly worried, never been aware of how much being taken could hurt for a woman. It is but a little soreness that Yassamin now feels, but the very awareness of her flesh, of her sensitivity overwhelms Fadl, plunging him into a sudden terrible shame, regret.

 _How do you do it?_ he asks Jaffar within his mind. _How can you take her without feeling like you were molesting a child, like some brute who was tearing her apart?_

 _Says the man who enjoys Chinawomen, girls barely pubescent in his bed?_ Jaffar snorts. _I thought you were the one of us who knew all about such things. And Yassamin is not even that small; she is tall for an Arab, even. You always boast about how you prefer a tight--_

 _I have changed my mind,_ Fadl says, and he hates this new realisation, this new knowledge, this new awareness: as Zainab begins to take Yassamin with the jade and he feels a twinge of pain in her cunny, Fadl's giant prick wilts in Jaffar's hand. If even a willing woman should have to suffer a little pain during long bouts of sex, what about all the times he has--? No. In that moment, all the women he has ever taken without care--some of them not even faces but cunnies, faded memories of warm little bodies--come to accuse him, as they will on Judgement Day, and he is terrified. He feels like a donkey, some priapic demon with a prick malformed; he no longer takes pride in his size, unable to enjoy the idea of cleaving into anyone that small any longer.

Jaffar is astonished at this; the women pay them no heed, Yassamin's eyes now fixed on Zainab, all of her focused on the pleasure Zainab is now giving her, Zainab bathing in the joy she derives from watching Yassamin's reactions.

 _So you have finally learned what they wanted you to learn,_ Jaffar thinks, without malice. _How it is for a woman._

 _Yes,_ Fadl spits in his mind, _and now I can never take a woman again without feeling a beast, unless she is as loose as a mare!_

_Nonsense. Zainab is similar to Yassamin on the inside; she accommodated you well the last time, I thought._

_Then why hasn't she done it again? She has not let me inside of her cunny all day. This is what she has meant to teach me: that I am no good whatsoever where women are concerned._

Jaffar has no answer to that. As the dark veil of Fadl's anguish settles over him, he, too, softens a little; yet stubbornly, he refuses to let go of his brother, still cradling him in his arms.

But it is now that Yassamin tosses, arches, shouts as she reaches the peak: she squeezes Zainab's head with her thighs, Zainab's hair a golden cloud between her legs. She cries out loud and high, bucking wildly, shock in her eyes at the violence of her release, it seems; the waves of it now crash through Jaffar and Fadl, too, making them both stagger as her ripples travel through their muscles in turn. And just as the furthest depths of the sea remain calm during a storm, they can sense the deep, rich satisfaction Zainab now feels a great, vast stillness underneath it all, a pleasure dark and heavy and sweet. She but hangs there and experiences Yassamin, riding her waves: the way Yassamin's clitoris now pulses in her mouth, swollen; the way her cunny clenches around the jade prick with such force Zainab has to keep pushing it back in, lest Yassamin's own contractions force it out.

Zainab herself hangs there hot, wet, teeming with burning need; her cunny pulsing as she sucks and sucks, yet unreleased. For long moments, she but keeps on sucking, sure to not stop until the last waves of Yassamin's orgasm have ebbed. She keeps on kissing her and kissing her until Yassamin finally twitches and gestures for Zainab to pull back, her cunny now far too sensitive to touch; Zainab rests her cheek on her belly instead, her arms around Yassamin's thighs as they lie there, catching their breath. 

None break the silence until Zainab groans, moves from her now-cramped position and wipes her mouth. She lifts onto her knees and turns to Fadl, her eyes full of something Fadl cannot quite read. "You," she says, her voice husky in her throat.

And now, Fadl can feel the pulse of Zainab's cunny in his own flesh, in his own very being: can it be that Zainab wants him there after all? Or--

And with a smile, Zainab takes the jade cock and lifts it, gleaming, into the light. "Come here and spread your legs." 

Yet Fadl does not; he is too terrified, now.

Zainab's eyes flick towards Jaffar's. 

"I think you have frightened my brother's soul out of him," Jaffar murmurs, taking his hand from Fadl's genitals to show Zainab their laxness, the way they have become soft and vulnerable from terror, from regret. "See?" he says, lifting his hand to Fadl's heart.

When Fadl still says nothing, Zainab sets down the jade prick and approaches them, now cupping Fadl's sack in her hand. "Yet I would take you," she says, weighing him in her palm. "That was our bargain."

"And I--" Fadl croaks, his shame leaden within his very viscera, twisting inside of his being. "And I would give you what is your due," he says, flicking down his eyes; yet, immediately, he forces himself to meet her gaze once more. He has more than earned this; only what Zainab is about to give him will wash at least a part of his sin off him, purge him, make him able to live with himself once more. After all, what is being taken by one woman in comparison to all those women _he_ has taken, used but to sate his own lusts? He is only being offered one hundredth of the pain he has given; that, he is sure of. _God is merciful._

"God is merciful indeed," Jaffar murmurs over his shoulder, still gently clasping his heart. "My Lady Zainab, I saw into his heart. He felt what the woman feels, and he repents. And I know this to be genuine."

Zainab nods, still not taking her eyes off Fadl's."Then all that is left for us is to let him prove it," she says. "To let him love, with this new knowledge moving through his flesh, guiding his every action. Answer me, then, firstborn of Yahya. Would you now show to us this new Fadl? How he takes, in love, and how he is taken in love in turn?"

Fadl licks his lips and shivers, his cock twitching; the silver wand that has rested inside of him all this time, shrunk and barely there, now makes its presence known once more. Zainab gazes into his eyes, her own still unreadable--is it mirth or cruelty or both?--as she makes the wand fill and curl inside of Fadl, mechanically inducing an erection in him. Jaffar needn't hold him in place, for he is transfixed by both Zainab's eyes and her touch inside of him, and something in him unravels, gives: already he is surrendering unto her, surrendering.

"I surrender," he says out loud, his lashes fluttering to his cheeks. "Do with me what you will, my Lady Zainab."

She smiles at him, and her joy is more beautiful than the autumn sky; now, there is a genuine warmth to her eyes, to her laughter. "The right answer," she says, patting Fadl's genitals. "Come. You, too, my pard."

And once more, it is as if Fadl steps into a dream. This is no torture, he realises, as if he has been tricked by a pairi: by having given her the right answer, he is given a heaven instead of the hell he had expected. Zainab rearranges the cushions and the mattresses so that she may lie down upon them comfortably, so that she may be seen and touched and loved, commanding a worship of her beauty. She unfolds her limbs, spreads the rich fullness of her thighs and cups her sex with her hands, displaying its sweetness for all to see. And now, Fadl is finally invited to share fully in this bounty of her flesh, Zainab beckoning him closer, closer. He looks over his shoulder at Jaffar and Yassamin--is this a trap?--but he receives no answer from either of them. 

Dazzled, Fadl but crawls between Zainab's legs and settles down to adore her: the heaving mountains of her flesh, the sweetest bed he has ever known; he cannot help but nuzzle her thighs as they enclose his head, his shoulders. For a moment, he feels a sting of pain in his heart as he realises she would never marry him, never, nor any other man, for that matter. And this pain is because he had just thought of falling asleep upon these flesh-pillows at the end of the day, doing so for the rest of his life, a yearning he does no longer remember having felt with any other woman. But then, does this knowledge not make this even more special a moment? Why, he could die tomorrow on his way home to Balkh, ambushed by bandits, and this could very well be the last time he makes love to a woman.

Therefore, he continues in his worship, heathen in his adoration of this woman heathen, so different from the meek slave girls he has known. This, this is what he shall take with himself to the frosty halls of Balkh to warm himself by on cold winter nights; this blessing, shall he clasp to his heart until his dying day: the love of Lady Zainab.

Zainab, Zainab; with his eyes and his hands does he love her, with his lips does he kiss her body, everywhere, everywhere. The full rolls of her belly and above them, her giant, pale and blue-veined breasts nestled between her arms, their shy nipples beginning to furl into peaks: these, he clasps between his hands and squeezes a little, sucking on each nipple until they harden in his mouth, until her thighs tremble around his waist. Her mouth on his mouth, oh, her mouth sweet from Yassamin's cunny, sweet from milk and mint and sugar; again, the rippled flesh of her inner thighs caresses his waist, coming to embrace the bones of his hips. 

And he rolls his hips into her in offering, mimicking how he would take her, his belly wet from her cunny. This must be what the ancients had meant about Mars being conquered by Venus, he thinks as he dips his body deep, as he would when delivering a brutal lance-thrust; yet now, he is greeted only by the sweet softness and wetness of a loving embrace.

 _Mars and Venus indeed,_ Jaffar thinks at him, fond as he kneels there behind them, held by Yassamin as they watch; _indeed, it is a beautiful sight._

And as Fadl kisses his way down Zainab's belly, her fragrance makes him reel, headier than opium wine; the scent of her arousal's sugar and ambergris hardening him fully once more, awakening the beast within him. Yet that beast is now collared and leashed by tenderness, the memory of having felt what Yassamin's sex had done still lingering inside of his loins, tempering his every movement. It was a sensation not unlike being taken himself--and there, as if she had read his mind, Zainab now makes the wand curl inside of him once more, taking him before he has even tasted of her. With a moan, he curls his back as he prostrates there, dragging his nails down her flanks as he lifts his arse high and dips his head between her legs; he pants an inch from her cunny, staring into her eyes, feverish.

"Please," he rasps, and the wand pushes inside of him, curls, curls; his cock writes a love-poem across his belly with its sap.

Yet Zainab tarries, knowing this but stokes Fadl's desire; she sinks her plump little hands into Fadl's hair and twists until tears spring into his eyes, curls the wand until Fadl's cock slaps against his belly, slaps, slaps. With the precise cruelty of her hands and her living silver, she tears a hoarse cry out of his chest, keeps on curling and dragging the toy inside of him, squeezing upon his prostate as if it were a fruit ripe for the plucking; her own cunny now swells thick from her sadistic heat, glimmering before his eyes, her nipples now full, hard rosebuds as she watches Fadl twisting there in pain. Rosebuds, oh, rosebuds, she the thorn and the rose, Fadl the nightingale goring himself upon her gladly, staining her a beautiful scarlet with the blood of his need, his need, his need--

"What was that, my beast?" Zainab croons and her cunny clenches, its wetness beading upon its petals, petals fattened by his agony, his pleas.

"Please," Fadl keens, his teeth chattering, the toy now pressing so deep inside of him its topmost bulb has slipped inside of his colon, nestling there. Each curl of it is a shock through his nerves, all hair on his body standing on end; his cock has now dribbled to his balls, just as Zainab's cunny has trickled onto her anus, a promise of pleasures--perhaps--to come. "Please, let me pleasure you, my lady; please, please."

It is at that that Zainab slaps him, so violently that his hair flies; before his ears have stopped ringing, she slaps him on the other cheek, and before he has recovered from _that,_ she has crushed his face into her cunny. Breathless, Fadl spasms there, collapsing onto the rugs; he burns his thighs, twists his cock, wordless, blind from his pain. But as Zainab lets him breathe for a second, oh, the rush as he draws his lungs full of air again, the rush! Stars dance in his eyes and as she curls the wand inside of him once more, he closes his mouth around her clitoris with a moan. Her thighs squeeze his head so that he cannot tell whether the vibrations, the tremors he now feels from her body are those of her pleasure-groans or laughter or both; all are nectar to him, just as the nectar of her cunny now smears his moustache, his beard whole. 

Determined, again he employs that technique of capturing a woman's clitoris tight between his teeth, of pressing his teeth into the pubic bone and sucking at the bud with violent force. But now, Zainab's cunny must already be sore--he can sense it from the slight hesitance of her hands upon his head as he begins to suck, never having been all that aware of little gestures like these before.

 _You're learning,_ Jaffar tells him.

 _Shut up,_ Fadl grumbles to him telepathically, even as he takes pride in how Zainab now melts upon his mouth as he loosens the suck a little, suckling upon her more gently.

"More," Zainab rasps, twisting her hand in his hair again. "Gods--no. No. That's not enough," she says and shakes her head.

"I'm sorry," Fadl says as he lifts his head from between her legs.

Zainab but shakes her head, hissing, dragging her thumb across his lower lip. "Fuck me," she but snaps, brutal, coarse. 

"Your wish is my command," Fadl laughs. Just as Yassamin, Zainab has been burning for too long without anything inside of her, Fadl reasons, so it's about time: he climbs over her and guides the tip of his cock to her cunny. 

And there, he hesitates. He gazes into Zainab's eyes, not wanting to give her pain; it is here that the pain begins, this much he knows, at the very gate to a woman's flesh. Zainab is far from virgin, yet she still squeezes him maiden-tight as the tip of his cock pushes past the muscles of her entrance, past the bones of her hips; for a moment, her stern demeanor falters and she bites her lip. She becomes just like any woman does at this moment as she angles her hips, pulls her folds open so that they won't catch on his cock, spreads her wetness around them for a better slide. She licks her hand to add more wetness, even if she is as wet as can be: Fadl only wishes he could gaze into her mind to read whether it was soreness that made her do this, but this is a part of his punishment, his lesson, it seems. 

That he has to use but her reactions, her body as his guide to prove his skill as a lover, to read her and to communicate with her, with no magic to ease the way: it is only compassion, awareness, empathy that are to guide his body, now. Therefore, it is a strange new Fadl that now reaches out to cup Zainab's cheek; the cheek of a harlot unused to male tenderness, caressed by a man unused to giving it. She starts a little, blinking as he so touches her, carding her hair with his fingers as if it were gold, the complete opposite of the way she had handled him. 

"Oh," she laughs in her surprise, and she looks so young, there; and in her eyes, the blue-white skies of Hyperborea where they say the sun does not set--

But then, with a lost cry, she is enveloping him, drawing him inside of herself, wrapping her little limbs around him and he has no choice but to fall. She moans deep in her chest, but it would be a crime if Fadl were to stop, now: therefore, he lets his weight descend into her, lets his flesh slide into her flesh with as much care as he can muster. He rocks into her, and yet it is Zainab who is taking him, taking him with her cunny and her legs as she rocks herself back onto him, her soft flesh undulating back and forth underneath him. Oh, but how he now rocks on top of her, how much sweeter the glide when her fat is there to ease his movements, such a soft sea made for love, made for it, made for it.

"That one, I heard," Zainab laughs into his ear, wrapping her arms around his neck, rocking a little from side to side, curling the wand inside of him playfully. "Take me, then, my sea-dog; take this sea, conquer it."

"Gladly, gladly, gladly," Fadl murmurs and covers her face in kisses, covers her neck and her breasts in nips and bites: now, he dares take her with a little more vigour, drawing his hips back and pushing in with more force. "Is that how you like it? Hmm?"

 _Now you sound like me,_ Jaffar says to his mind, but Fadl does not listen. "Tell me," Fadl murmurs against Zainab's shoulder between thrusts, "tell me how it feels, my lady, so that I might love you best."

"That's exactly it," Zainab laughs and rubs her cunny; she throws back her head and groans joyfully through her nose, rolling her hips back into his thrusts. "You _have_ learned since the last time!"

"Oh, I'll show you--!" Fadl cries, but it is incredibly hard to focus, what with the way her body is driving him out of his mind. He wants nothing more than to keep on pushing, thrusting, surging into her tightness; for a year, he has yearned to return inside this wonderful cunny, and now that he has been allowed inside of it again, he wants to never leave. Even as he had satisfied himself with his hand, with his concubines, he could never fully imagine, replicate the plushness of her cunny's lips, combined with the tightness of her insides. That she should be as small as a child but possess the curves of a grown woman, the maiden and the harlot at once! 

But with that thought, regret and shame again mix their bitterness into Pleasure's wine, and he has to know, has to make sure.

"Am I hurting you? Please, Zainab," he asks, shaking his head so that his hair whips sweat from his eyes; "Please, Zainab. Tell me." She is so tight, she squeezes him so, she clenches and tosses on him so, her face so twisted that can this all be but pleasure? Or pleasure-pain? If he is giving her even the tiniest measure of pain that goes above that given in love-play--

"Shut up and take me," Zainab but laughs and licks sweat from the tip of his nose. "No, Fadl. It feels good. Truly. But let me turn on my bel--"

Yet at that, Fadl takes her hands and laces her fingers with his, kissing her, pinning her down onto the cushions. "No," he whispers into her mouth. "I would see your face as you come. Or I would never be able to forgive myself."

"Then you'll have to help me," she says. "It's only a matter of finding the right angle; I fear I might not reach release otherwise."

But now, Fadl does not believe her. She had come undone in this position with Jaffar; why could she not come in this position with him?

 _Because you are bigger than me and do not hit her in the same spots, you idiot,_ Jaffar tells him. _And it's far more difficult for a woman to reach release, even when she is masturbating, so I would do as she says._

"Command me, then," Fadl says, resting on top of Zainab, but holding her close, tender.

"Lift my legs upon your shoulders," Zainab tells him. 

Even if she seems a little uncomfortable, what with her ample flesh squeezed together in this way, Fadl does as he is told. He can feel her womb moving as he rearranges her, the angle of her vagina changing; yes, he feels as if he can reach the very back of her sex, now, that same spot that Yassamin so enjoys being touched in. 

"Is this better?" he asks and kisses her foot.

Again, Zainab licks her fingertips and brings them to her clitoris. "That's it. Try now," she says and smiles.

Oh, and Fadl cannot lie: this feels amazing for him as well, now that the lips of her cunny squeeze more tightly around his length, covering more of his prick than ever before. It is a position he has not tried before, always having preferred full, long thrusts himself, an honest pounding, but from the way her smile now spreads to encompass her entire face, there is something to be said for delicacy. Delicate, delicate sweet thrusts--do the Indians not call this the peacock position? Or was it the Chinese? For it is a little comical at first, he feels, like the short pecks of a bird that he now delivers to her cunny with his prick. But Zainab seems to be enjoying it, the squeeze in particular, her hand now flying faster and faster on her cunny, her eyes fluttering shut; on a whim, Fadl takes both her legs and throws them over only one of his shoulders, then bends down over her, bringing his face close to hers.

"How about this?" he purrs, rolling his hips at the end of a thrust, and he has never been as deep inside of her, never.

The noise Zainab makes in her throat is animal, animal; he can see but the whites of her eyes from between her nearly-closed, fluttering lids. The poor woman is going into seizure, but a seizure of love, he thinks, delirious himself from the way he can now feel her very womb fluttering above his cock; he repeats this pull and thrust and roll of his hips, the tip of his cock drawing circles inside of her flesh. And as he speeds up, he can feel Zainab unravelling, she unable to speak a word; he cannot see her cunny, but can feel her trickling over him, and already he laughs in triumph. But he remembers Jaffar telling him that a woman's ejaculation can be but a herald of her orgasm, not the orgasm itself--oh, but now she is dripping down his sack!

"Fadl!" Zainab cries, shrieking right next to his ear, but he adores this, and he never stops rolling his hips, never stops driving his pleasure into her, inscribing his very name into her womb with the heated tip of his prick. She convulses around him so violently that now he parts her legs, dividing them over his shoulders once more: this sends her bucking and howling over his cock, thrusting back onto him as if she feared losing its touch. "Come, please, push it back, deep, the way you were just now--please--keep doing that, exactly that, yes, yes!"

As if he could ever stop! He surges into her, trembling himself, yet the toy inside of him seems to have stilled as Zainab's concentration is swept up by her cascade towards release, focusing her mind on her own pleasure alone. Victory, he thinks, _victory!_ As each roll of his hips now brings a contraction of her cunny with itself, a spray, him barely having to move inside of Zainab at all as she sates herself upon his cock. And gladly, he offers his full length to her, gladly; each time the glans of his cock is swallowed behind her womb, her eyes roll back and she shouts, spittle flying from her mouth as she grinds her hand into her cunny and comes, comes, comes. 

Even if Zainab's mind is not entwined with his, Fadl can feel her now bathing him in its waves, much more gentle and light than what he'd felt from her through Jaffar before, but it's there, there: softly rolling waves of warm summer winds in the middle of autumn, and he fancies he can feel the apricot leaves rustling around them as she falls. He swims in this sea of her ecstasy as he swims upon the soft sea of her flesh, immersed in it, bathing himself in it, languid, sweet. 

But at last, she spasms and trembles, her legs cramping; still nestled inside of her, Fadl sets her legs down and rubs circulation back into her hips and thighs, resting his weight on top of her.

He cups her face in his hands. "Did that satisfy you, my lady?" he asks, beaming.

"Mmm," Zainab murmurs, drunk; she tries to give his cheek a kiss but misses, the kiss landing on the tip of his nose instead. And she does something with her hand, a beckoning movement--

"Finally," Jaffar laughs, and then he is upon them. Swiftly, he pulls the silver wand out of Fadl's guts and enters him with ease: his cock is so well-oiled, so slick that the oil drips down Fadl's balls as Jaffar sheathes himself in his brother's flesh. 

Oh, but Fadl hates him. He hates him. He hates him and he hates Zainab, now laughing and jiggling underneath him, his deceitful bed of flesh. They had planned this all along, and _this_ must have been why Jaffar hadn't taken part in the debaucheries just now; oh, the _bastard._ Now, Fadl is absolutely unwilling to give Jaffar the satisfaction of moaning or groaning or complaining about being so suddenly taken: instead, he makes himself as limp as possible in protest.

"You turned him into a rag doll, my sweet," Jaffar chuckles at Zainab, stealing a kiss over Fadl's reluctant shoulder. "That cunny of yours is truly miraculous: it can make even al-Fadl, son of Yahya of the Barmakids shut up for a moment!" he laughs.

"And how do we get _you_ to shut up, you devious bastard?" Fadl finally moans.

"Mmm," Jaffar says and rolls his hips, letting out an exaggerated groan of pleasure. "Your little cunny here is quite the delicacy. If you squeeze around me a little more, I might--"

At that, Fadl falls limp once more. "I protest!"

But now, Zainab squeezes around him, wrapping her legs around them both. "You agreed to be taken, you remember? I am not letting either of you go until you have _drenched_ me. That's an order."

"Hurry up, then," Fadl grunts into Zainab's shoulder, uncaring that he sounds like a petulant child. 

But Jaffar and Zainab do not care: they exchange especially sensuous, deep kisses over Fadl's shoulder, she rocking onto Fadl, loving the way Jaffar is now taking them both. "It is not often that I get taken by two men at once;" she sighs in delight, "show me what you are made of, my pard."

And as much as Fadl would love to complain, he loves Jaffar's strokes even more than Zainab does; he cannot lie. Finally, finally, he has not only a cunny of living flesh around his cock, but also a cock of flesh and blood in his guts: rarely has he ever been so fulfilled. And after all, he doesn't have to do much of the work; therefore, he but spreads his legs for Jaffar, enjoying this rare feast like a king, being so pleasured by lovers male and female. Jaffar is the only man he would let himself be taken by, after all, and even if he hates Zainab now knowing this--or had she known this from before?--he doubts Zainab is going to tell. This knowledge helps him surrender and but focus on his pleasure, and despite himself, he even pushes back into Jaffar's thrusts, pushes into Zainab's cunny, now actively taking his pleasure from both.

"More?" Jaffar asks mischievously. 

"If you must," Fadl says, now unable to hold back laughter. "No, brother, I lie. Please. Do continue." 

And going by Jaffar's sudden cries, now Yassamin must have completed their circle of pleasure: Jaffar makes that _exact_ noise he always does when someone tongues his arse.

"Babylonian demoness!" Jaffar howls; therefore, Fadl assumes he is right. But he does not care, as long as this means Jaffar wriggles and rolls into him all the harder, bucking as he does between the delights of Yassamin's tongue and Fadl's arse. If anything, Fadl has to make sure he gets to come before Jaffar does; a tongue always undoes Jaffar as fast as if he were a youth of sixteen. 

But then Fadl can think no more: Jaffar has found _that_ angle in his guts and Zainab is doing _that_ squeeze with her cunny--and all of him surges up his spine and down into his balls and he shoots out white, surges out white, roars. Oh, but that clever bitch is now milking him, too, and even as Fadl dizzies in his orgasm, he reasons Jaffar must be sending to her signals on how to do it exactly in time with him--the bastard has designed this like one of his automatons! 

Yes, automatons; Fadl laughs deliriously as he falls and comes and sprays and sloshes and hugs Zainab, himself but a cog in Jaffar's monstrous pleasure-machine. And who cares! Now, he becomes nothing but pleasure, his flesh made of gold and silver and white, white, white. White pulses up his guts, white pulses out of his balls, white pulses out of his cock, white flashes behind his eyes; white flashes of Zainab's teeth as she laughs, white, white.

And then he is at the centre of them all: there is flesh around him, above him, below him, male and female rearranged: he is suckling upon a cunny, suckling upon a cock, and hot wet flesh slurps away from around him and encloses around his cock once more. He daren't open his eyes to shame this moment, only swims in this sea of love, a Fadl made anew; the languor of orgasm has sluiced all worry off him, washed all parts of that old and miserable Fadl off him and he glows, glows. Something licks him, something pushes inside of him, in and out of him, massaging him on the inside: the silver toy once more, he reckons; cunnies and cocks and arses take turns taking their pleasure from his mouth and his fingers and he adores, adores.

"My sight-hound," Zainab murmurs to him as if she were taking him, even if it's Jaffar's body he now feels pressed against his back, inside of him; odd. "Look, my little hound-dog, look," she says with such tenderness, such gentleness that Fadl fears that should he open his eyes now, he would weep: he is so full, so perfectly full and stretched that he never wants to leave this moment, ever.

But on and on the voice calls to him. "Fadl," and Yassamin's hands--he recognises them from their henna and their lack of sapphire bracelets--draw his hair from his eyes and lift his head to look between his legs.

He opens his eyes, and it is indeed Zainab between his legs, smiling, and the expression upon her face is rapt. Her hand is between his legs, caressing him, but--and now Jaffar moves to spread Fadl's legs even wider, looking past his lax genitals, sharing his sight with Fadl. "Look, brother, look," he whispers in marvel; "I would not believe it were I not seeing it with mine own eyes. But her hands are very small, are they not?"

For now, Zainab's hand rests within Fadl's body, nestled inside of it, as if it had always belonged there: his arse a swollen, raised red ring around her wrist. Oh, but it is a sight grotesque, yet the most beautiful: Zainab's smile is not brutal, but beatific, that of a high priestess unfolding to him a revelation. For it's as if this was the greatest act of love she knew, and chose to share only with the select few. And from Jaffar's mood, from his holy mood, Fadl knows this to be true. Within but this one day, he has had his sins burned off him, a Fadl reborn: he has gone from sinner to neophyte to an initiate of the greatest of mysteries, oh, oh--

And now, Zainab is turning her hand inside of him and it is the most wonderful feeling, this inescapable ecstasy, and is this how women feel when he takes them? Is this what it feels like to be filled to the utmost? Is this it? This... this _euphoria,_ this overwhelming joy, this pleasure to end all pleasures, and again his eyes are going white? Now he knows, and he wants to be sick, and he wants to come, and he wants to moan. Can he moan? Is there any breath left in his lungs? 

_Oh. Oh._ "Oh--"

And his eyes roll back in his head and there is only pleasure for him, now: there is no more Fadl, only joy white, joy white upon white upon white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. Just for lols, have an extra manip of a modern-day AU in which [Fadl becomes Zainab's ponyboy.](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/145870613378/here-you-go-zainabfadl-the-modern-au-shes) (Probably NSFW because of the fetish setting, even if there are no naughty bits visible).


	8. Chapter 8

***

The next day 

*** 

Yassamin burns.

Oh, but this is a madness, madness; she is still scorched by an animal heat, heavy and dark as it pools within her hips, making it difficult for her to even walk. The guests have left, Fadl following Zainab, having offered to escort her to her house just to be able to spend one more day with her. 

Yet Yassamin suffers from some strange need unsated, still aching the day after, just when she'd thought she'd had enough. An orgy they've performed, an entire month's worth of sex in one day, and still she isn't satisfied!

She reels in her bed, alone, Jaffar having retreated early that night to his own chambers, all the magic he had used yesterday now exacting its toll on his body. But as her husband sleeps, Yassamin writhes in the claws of a heat threefold: that of being on the cusp of her bleeding, that of having been taken so thoroughly that the soreness of her cunny now feels like arousal itself, and last but not least, that of her having been near Zainab. 

Zainab, Zainab, the ever-lustful Zainab, with her desire singing wanton in Yassamin's veins: it's as if her lascivious humours have soaked into Yassamin's flesh through her sweat, as if she has dyed Yassamin deep with the colours of her harlotry, her passions insatiable. 

And there Yassamin lies, squirming, naked in the heat of the night, with but her own hand and her toys for company. Her cunny is too sore for the jade tonight, so she chooses a prick leathern, one with metal spheres nestled into its wool stuffing to satisfy herself tonight. But she cannot insert it just yet, not being wet enough or soft enough, and for that, she needs inspiration. Yet, she is too restless to think up a fantasy--oh, why is Jaffar not here?--and she wishes she had a pornographic book, something, anything to take her mind off the chaos it's now in. 

Her body demands a ravishment, demands to be _fucked,_ yet refuses her simultaneously. Oh, why does a woman's body have to be this complex? It is worse than a man's impotence, Jaffar had told her: he had been surprised himself at how much arousal a woman needed to take a cock inside of her cunny without pain--the arse needed no such preparations, only a dollop of oil or cream. The days upon which he can take on a female shape are so rare, now, that at times he has rushed his way to penetration without the right mood, without adequate foreplay, and has always regretted it. There were times, he had told her, when he had attempted to penetrate his cunny with but lubricant to ease the way, without realising exactly how much softening, expansion and moisture the vaginal walls required to take in a cock or a toy pleasurably; in the worst cases, he had hurt himself, making his cunny too sore to properly enjoy the rest of his female days. 

It is as the books had told him, he had admitted ruefully: a man's desire begins from the outside, from the stimulation of the body's sensory organs, nerves; for a man, sexual pleasure itself has its beginning in the flesh. And from there, it takes a long and slow route into his core; only once this pleasure has reached the heart, and the soul that dwells within it, does it transform into love. But a man's nerves are so close to the surface of his body that sometimes his pleasure peaks without having touched the heart at all: this explains why the male body reaches release faster and more easily than a woman's, why it's able to sate itself with just external stimulation; why a man does not need to be in love in order to enjoy sex.

Yet a woman's pleasure works in the exact opposite manner, Jaffar had told her. It begins from the inside, from within her soul; it is through the nerves of a woman's heart that her passion pours down into the womb and the cunny, bringing her organs the moisture and the heat they need for the act of coitus. Thus, without the nerves of the heart being stimulated by the right mood, a woman's body cannot enjoy being taken at all.

Yet try as she might, Yassamin cannot focus tonight, cannot stir her heart and her womb with a mind so distraught: she needs someone else, something else to rouse herself, to make her body ready for pleasure. 

Oh. 

The crystal.

Jaffar cannot be using the crystal, now, and Fadl and Zainab must be coupling like beasts this very moment; she knows it. Perhaps if she--

It only takes a few moments for her to wrap up in a robe and sneak into the library, to steal the crystal for herself. That she should be thieving on her own husband, stealing sights of her own brother-in-law's amorous trysts to sate her needs--oh, but she is ruthless in her heat and she does not care. After all, it had been Jaffar who had made her this way: always, always he had told her to follow the voice of Desire and Desire alone.

And as she sets the crystal upon her bed and props it up with cushions, it is as if Zainab and Fadl had been waiting for her to arrive: as soon as the crystal finds them, they spring into action, all but attacking each other. Fadl tears the last of Zainab's garments off her, and naked, they fall into bed, tussling, growling; with an animal fury, Fadl devours Zainab's breasts and thighs and buttocks, biting them, _chewing_ upon them, making Zainab scream and cackle in delight.

Presently, Zainab sits in Fadl's lap, panting in his embrace as he kneels there on the bed, he squeezing and slapping and clutching at her massive arse and thighs, groaning into her breasts. Zainab, in turn, sinks her hands into his hair and tugs and pulls at its strands until it all comes loose from its ponytail. "Sodomy tonight," she moans into his devouring mouth, rocking upon him, huffing wetly, slickly in her heat. She grinds her arse onto his already-hard cock, trapping it between her buttocks as she pushes him down on the bed, her flesh rippling and jiggling as she ruts against him frantically, wetting him with her cunny. "Fuck me, you son of a bitch," she snaps from between her teeth, deliberately vulgar; "fuck my _arse._ "

Yassamin moans herself, now, her hand squeezing her cunny; already she is trickling out from between its lips and she draws this wetness upwards to her clitoris, shivering in delight as the slickness meets its tip. How but a few moments of watching this have already made her so wet, oh; she dips two fingertips inside of herself to test whether she is ready for more. 

But no, she is still not wet enough, still not swollen enough to take her leather prick. Yet, as every courtesan knows, as Jaffar had told her from his own experience, this is no concern with the arse: but unlock its muscles and apply enough slickness, and pleasure comes with ease. Even on days when Yassamin has been too drunk, too sore or too out of humours for her cunny to take a prick without pain, she has been able to take Jaffar in the rear; at times, it has been the only way for her to to reach release. 

And Zainab knows this trick, knows it well; with one hand on Fadl's cock, she reaches for a jar of cream on her bedside table. 

Oh, to hell with it; Yassamin does the same. And as she still wants the leather prick in her cunny later, she chooses the jade one to take her arse with tonight. Unlike Zainab, Yassamin needs no cream, no oil to accommodate the prick of her choice: the jade is so smooth she can take it with but her own sap alone. What would not be enough to take a cock of flesh and blood without too much friction is enough to slicken a lover made of glass-smooth stone: yet, she tarries, only pressing the ring of her anus with its tip, massaging herself with it. She wants to take herself as Zainab is being taken, to match her self-ravishment with the ravishment Fadl is about to give Zainab, and Zainab is not there yet.

And oh, but the sight that now greets Yassamin as she guides the crystal's gaze closer, closer: she lets out a cry as Zainab bends over, filling the entire crystal with the glories of her plump cunny, her glistening arsehole, her full buttocks. Presently, Zainab plunges two fingers inside of her arse, hooking them there, and Yassamin is sure she must be giving herself a little pain at least, assaulting herself in this manner. But oh, how she enjoys this roughness, displaying to Fadl what she needs tonight: she hisses and twists, the lips of her cunny lifting in the telltale sign of her internal muscles clenching, squeezing, pulsing in their need. 

Fadl is no fool; this is his cue. Immediately, he pounces Zainab, yanks her fingers out of her arse and replaces them with three of his. Brutal, he pushes them in dry, with only the cream Zainab had just used easing his way; he plunges them inside of her and twists them until she screams. "Is this what you want?" he hisses, hooking his fingers inside of her, rolling them, relishing her insides; "Hard, hmm? Rough?"

"Yes," Zainab moans over her shoulder, and Yassamin swears in frustration as for a moment, Fadl's head obscures Zainab's cunny: he has to steal a lick, suck, several. But even when Yassamin cannot see what he is doing, Zainab's reactions tell her enough; she cries out and pushes back onto Fadl's mouth, takes his face with her cunny, yes, fucks him with it, and now Yassamin is sure that that massive nose of his is plunging inside of her cunny a little. "Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me," Zainab commands him in her love-fury, slamming her cunny into his face. Fadl, however, keeps on lapping at her, making disgusting slurps and sucks as he so teases her, ignoring her cries as he thrusts his fingers inside of her arse. He laughs into her cunny, wet and slick; as he pulls back to breathe, thick white strings of her wetness dangle between her cunny and his moustache, his lips. 

"Louder," he says, and now he lifts, pulling the screaming Zainab up against his chest by the hair, offering his wet fingers from her arse to her lips; with his cock nestled between her thighs, he ruts against her cunny, his cock already smeared from her wetness. "What do you want, my sweet?"

Zainab but takes his hand and sucks it wildly, staring up at him a fury; she makes an exaggerated moan of despair around his hand, coughing as she tugs it out of her mouth. " _Fuck my arse,_ you cretin! Or have you forgotten how to?" she cries, spreading her buttocks with both hands, now, pressing her head to the pillows. "Here. Take it!"

Yet it is but spit that Fadl gives her, a smack of his hand right over her anus, sending her howling into the mattress; he tugs her arse open with his thumb and guides the tip of his cock to its gaping little hole. "Once more, my dear," he pants, settling on his knees behind her; it takes a while for Yassamin, too, to find an angle from which she can best see them. She settles for watching them from over Fadl's shoulder; she shivers in utter delight as she watches Zainab's arse clenching around the glans of Fadl's cock, her own arse clenching in sympathy against the tip of the jade prick.

"Fuck m--"

But Zainab's words are cut short as Fadl begins to push inside, sheathing himself halfway with the first thrust; he must be hurting himself with such swift entry, but he does not seem to care. Zainab howls, Yassamin howls as she repeats Fadl's actions with the jade cock; she does not have to imitate him but does so nevertheless, determined to finish what she'd started. The bulbous head of the dildo slips past the gates of Yassamin's muscles and it hurts, now, hurts a little; yet it is a pain perfect, divine. She convulses upon the bed, the sensation of it so intense, so overwhelming her hands slip and the toy nearly slides out of her; she curses and struggles to breathe again. 

And before her eyes, Zainab's quivering, red flesh opens for Fadl, swallowing him into her trembling need. Him, and Yassamin: Yassamin relishes watching this as a man, fucking her a man, that monstrous thickness of Fadl's cock sinking between the pale softness of Zainab's buttocks. This impalement is a sight brutal, yet exquisite; just like Fadl, Yassamin is seduced, entranced by Zainab's shallowed breathing, swaying to the song of Zainab's siren mewls as she struggles to take Fadl inside of herself. 

And yet, despite the fury of his passion, the new concern and care that have awakened in Fadl guide his actions even now: he shifts upon his knees and goes slowly, perhaps himself a little sore from yesterday's exertions, a choked cry leaving his throat as he rocks himself inside of her, still buried only halfway.

"Zainab--" he gasps, and now Yassamin can see his arms are covered in gooseflesh, just as Zainab's buttocks and thighs are, both of them overwhelmed by the intensity of this form of penetration. This shock of white heat that Yassamin, too, is party to, all of her convulsing as the jade touches the back of her womb--

"Well, well, well!" Jaffar laughs from the door.

Yassamin lets out a shriek, her nerves sending a shock through her entire body; it is as if he has woken her from deep sleep. The crystal dims as she loses her concentration, the jade dildo slips out of her arse; she clutches the sheets, her lungs spasming, unable to breathe. 

"What are you doing here?" she mutters from between her teeth when her heart is no longer in her throat.

"I came to look for my crystal," Jaffar laughs, and even through his loose white nightrobe, Yassamin can see he is slinking his hips as he strolls towards her. "Zahra told me the children had been playing with it, so I was planning to take it to the shabestan for safekeeping. I was hoping to catch them in the act, but then I heard your moans, and, well," he laughs as he sits down on the bed, kissing her knee. "Caught you, didn't I? My little thief."

Yassamin flushes and covers her face with her arm. "Oh, God."

"Come. What were you watching?" Jaffar says, running his fingertips across the slit of her cunny, making her whimper upon the bed. "It must have been quite something," he chuckles and licks her sweetness off his fingers. 

"Just Fadl and Zainab," she mumbles from underneath her arm.

"That was my first guess," Jaffar nods and pulls off his nightshirt. "Go on, then. Show me," he says, and it's clear from his words that he needs Yassamin to perform the spell, still not having replenished his own magical energies. "Before we miss the best parts," he chuckles and lies down beside Yassamin.

"Very well," Yassamin says and gestures at the crystal, focusing her mind on it as best as she can: now, they are in Zainab's bedroom once more. 

Jaffar winces a little as Zainab's exceedingly loud moans and wails now blast into their ears: Fadl has started to thrust into her arse in earnest, truly taking her, fucking her, giving her the hard pounding she had wanted. Fadl pushes her face down into the pillows, twisting her hair and pacing his thrusts so that he can play her screams and her gasps like an instrument; she is so wet she drips in strings down his sack as she ululates there, shimmering strands of her sap whipping off his balls as they slap against her swollen cunny. 

It is a sight so glorious even Jaffar's weary prick twitches a little; he chuckles in delight and nestles against Yassamin to watch. He slips his hand to Yassamin's cunny, stroking it in a fashion almost absent-minded, the way he so often does when they lie in bed together; his hand travels there naturally, this being his favourite place to warm it, he always says. "Don't mind me," he says and kisses her shoulder. "Please. Continue what you were doing," he says, always keen to watch.

"Well, since you're there..." Yassamin glances at him with a smile and gives him the jade dildo, gesturing for him to push it back inside of her arse, move it inside of her. "Slowly. Oh. That's--oh, that's it. Don't stop," she murmurs and bites her lip. She begins to stroke herself, whimpering in delight as she watches Zainab's arse jiggling in the crystal, Zainab throwing herself down onto Fadl's cock with wild slaps, screaming in delight.

"I feel for my brother," Jaffar laughs as he watches them, his head pillowed upon Yassamin's shoulder as he slowly takes her with the toy, not in a hurry, gentle, sweet. "Here we are, having to pleasure two insatiable demonesses day after day, orgy after orgy!" he tuts, but his eyes upon Yassamin are adoring, young with delight. "The only trouble is, your beauty is distracting me from them," he murmurs.

"You are a terrible distraction yourself, my dear," Yassamin says and nuzzles his face, shivering in delight at the pleasure he is now giving her. "I only turned to them because you were not here, my love; there is no aphrodisiac sweeter than your good self and you know it. But come, let us watch them for a little while, still; I doubt they will last long."

"I am not protesting," Jaffar says, kissing her cheek.

And there they lie, Jaffar taking her as Fadl takes Zainab: Jaffar's hand is so experienced at this, so skilled at this that Yassamin can but luxuriate in being pleasured, focusing fully on the vision in the crystal. Judging by Zainab's cries, by the way she beats herself against Fadl's hips and twists, she is now reaching her first peak: her noises grow shorter, higher, her arse slurping around Fadl's cock as it loosens in orgasm. Zainab shudders all over, Fadl groaning deep in his chest as the lubricating cream and her fluids now draw thick streaks of white around his cock; from just underneath his cock, Yassamin can spy a hint of a little spray, telling them Zainab is coming violently indeed. 

In fact, she is coming so violently that she seems to be pulling Fadl into orgasm with herself: Fadl's own roars grow lower, deeper and now--yes, now it is his own sperm that is foaming out of her arse. Voluminous, it bursts out of her, splashes out of her as he slaps into her without rhythm, trickling out in thick rivulets all over the length and breadth of his cock. Yassamin's mouth waters at the sight of his painted cock, deliciously marbled with white and yellow and clear; she can almost taste him, her, the taste of must and salt and sweet cunny-sap. If only Yassamin had been allowed this pleasure yesterday, if only: she imagines taking out Fadl's cock and sucking it, relishing their combined tastes; she moans and trembles upon Jaffar's jade cock, her own cunny now wetting it with its spray, so near orgasm herself.

Yet on and on, Fadl keeps thrusting inside of Zainab as if he were unable to stop coming, unable to stop fucking her: it is clear that he is forcing himself past the point where he would normally collapse, wanting to continue beyond it so that he can keep on taking her all night. 

"Quite the secret romantic, yes," Jaffar chuckles, nuzzling Yassamin's cheek, scooping up her spray with his free hand and sucking it off his fingertips, groaning in delight.

Yet there is one perversion, one still new to him, that Fadl cannot resist. As soon as Zainab relaxes, grows more quiet and balances her wet hands on the bed, Fadl pulls his prick out, slowly, holding her arse open with his hands. This, this is what he has been hungering for, the proof of his own conquest of her flesh, the tyranny of the hard prick triumphing over those tightest of muscles: the sight of Zainab's arse opened, widened, dilated into a gaping hole. 

"Fucking delicious," Fadl snarls and as he sinks his tongue into Zainab's gaping arse, Yassamin tosses upon the jade toy, howling, again spraying as she imagines what he is now tasting. 

"Don't stop, don't stop--" Yassamin cries as Fadl drinks in Zainab's fluids, his own sperm bursting out onto his moustache, and it must taste so salty, so sweet, and oh God, oh, God, now Yassamin's own arse is _slurping_ as she tumbles into orgasm. 

And now, Zainab groans and farts out the last of Fadl's come, jiggling her arse into his cheeks so that the fat of her buttocks ripples, splashing his sperm everywhere--

Yassamin's eyes flash blue and white and dark; she convulses, flashes again, tosses up from the bed and comes. She shrieks and she cannot stop spraying, her cunny so heated now from being ignored, the bare flesh of it slick and sensitive as she rubs her clitoris with her fist, grinds her knuckles into it. She keens through her teeth, Jaffar's thrusting hand following her perfectly as she arches off the sheets, changing the angle of the the jade toy so as not to hurt her. "Jaffar, Jaffar, Jaffar," she sobs into his shoulder as she unravels upon the jade, spasming, her knees quaking closed and shut. "Please--!" she gasps even as her orgasm ebbs, that awful, beautiful sensation of the anal orgasm that never ends, turning each stroke into a little orgasm in and of itself, making her want more even if she is exhausted. 

Jaffar but lets her clasp the toy herself, to keep it inside of herself as he dims the crystal and comes to cup her face with his hands, kissing her long and sweet. "You have no idea how much I would love to take you now," he sighs. "But the flesh is weak," he says and glances down between his legs; his own prick is only half-hard. "If only I were twenty again," he frowns, the pain in his voice breaking her heart. Their age difference, the silent and unspoken doom of what it means always hanging between them, the only thing that has ever truly come in the way of their love. "I could use magic, but not tonight. I'm sorry," he says, searching her eyes, his own filled with sorrow.

She takes his hand and kisses it. "Do not apologise. This is why I meant to pleasure myself alone; I'm not demanding miracles from you," she says. 

"However," he says, determined to distract not only her but himself from his flaws, "never let it be said I cannot pleasure my wife." He looks around on the bed and spies the leather prick. "Were you planning to use them both at the same time?" he asks with a smile. 

Yassamin rolls her eyes. "Oh, God. No. I wasn't."

Yet the fact that she is still holding onto the jade cock tells him all he needs to know. "Would you like to try?" he now asks her, smirking widely as he rests the tip of the leather cock on her cunny. "It's the least I could do. You can imagine me being the jade fellow, and that this one is Fadl."

Yassamin shakes her head and touches his wrist. "No, my fool. They are both my Jaffar," she says, adoring the way this makes him smile--he knows she is speaking the truth. "Come, then. Ravish me," she says, rocking her hips; both of them know that since sodomy is involved, it should not take long to undo her once more.

"Hold this for a while first," he says and gives her the leather prick. "Where's the silver wand?"

But of course--he deserves a little pleasure himself. "The chest is over there."

And after a while of kissing and caressing, they settle into an unusual position on the bed: lying on their sides, facing each other's groins; each with a leg thrown over the other's shoulder, pleasuring each other with toys and mouths. Indeed, it does not take long at all for Jaffar to make Yassamin come again, so she has time to but lie there and enjoy his ministrations after, his kisses upon her cunny. Once she hurts too much to be sodomised any further, he takes her only with the leather prick inside of her cunny; she, in turn, takes him with her mouth, with gentle presses and curls of the living silver inside of his flesh. Soon, she even forgets about her own pleasure, so wrapped up is she in the sweet glow of Jaffar's; entranced, she drinks in his joy as he hugs her thighs, his head nestled between them, his face contorted in ecstasies. 

Quietly, she slips out of his arms and turns him onto his back. The leather prick slips out of her, and she has had her fill: now she wants to focus on but taking her Jaffar, enveloping him in the grateful warmth of her loving flesh. And there she lies, sucking him for a long while, his cock never hard enough to penetrate her, but enjoying the love of her mouth nevertheless; tender and soft and lovely, he pulses against her tongue, trickles the sweetest of nectars into her mouth as she so milks him. Where Jaffar has usually been the one bathing in her orgasms, her love, her happiness, he is now the one opening himself to her, giving himself to her entire: this requires no great magical effort from him, so used are they to this connection, this communion. 

And within his body, within his pleasure, she swims, swims; now, she takes out the silver wand and loves him with the leather prick instead, mimicking the thrusts of a real cock, never ceasing in her sucking of him. And oh, his sobs as she undoes him onto the leather, onto her hand over and over, internal orgasms that wrack his body, that make him curl up around her soul, howling in his ecstasy; oh, but the sweetness of his tears as she kisses them from his face after each time.

When he finally ejaculates, it is weak and sweet; but a little spurt, yet his entire self is burning, burning around her, consuming her in its flames. She has slid inside of his mind, feeling his flesh as her flesh, each muscle on their joint body afire; she moves inside of him as if it were he masturbating with her, he taking himself with his own prick, and now she no longer knows who takes whom. She is lifted from her self and taken up into Jaffar, his body swallowing her soul, the man become the woman once more; he the mother that now envelops her. She, in turn, becomes the man who seeks his end within her, the womb-home he had lost upon birth, she returning to her source, Jaffar, Jaffar. The wellspring surging into the roots of the jasmine, making her blossom in a thousand white flowers, singing their joy to the heavens a perfume; in this sweetness beyond orgasm they float, dwell for long moments before they, a little melancholy, must once again return down to earth.

Yassamin creaks her eyes open a little, nuzzled as she is into Jaffar's shoulder, their limbs entwined underneath a blanket. 

A blanket? 

_Where did that come from?_ she asks.

_Hmm?_

_The blanket. Did you move it? Your arms have been around me this whole time. Weren't you supposed to be too tired for magic?_

_Oh, damn it,_ he thinks at her. _I must have done it unconsciously. Force of habit and all that. Or then I am more powerful a sorcerer than I thought._ Grumbling, he makes a show of pulling up the blanket with his hands of flesh this time, rearranging it around them both. "And stay there," he mumbles.

"I, or the blanket?"

"Both," he sighs into her hair. "I need both to rep--" his voice is broken into a yawn. "Replenish myself."

"Then do so, you fool," she says and kisses his nose, smiling. "Sleep."

Yet Jaffar, as any parent of small children, cannot. "Did you lock the library door?" he frowns. "I don't want the children rummaging around there as they look for the crystal. They'll break something yet. Or hurt themselves."

Yassamin rolls her eyes. "I must have," she groans. "But it's... it must be three o'clock. Surely they will not go wandering off at this hour?"

But Jaffar knows as well as she does that they will not be able to sleep if they cannot be sure. "It's good that you brought the crystal, then," he groans as he extricates himself. 

"Just a quick look, then," Yassamin yawns and waves her hand at the crystal, still thankfully propped up on its cushions at the foot of the bed. 

Yassamin murmurs a rune to show them the children's bedroom, and there the little ones lie, safe and sound: Anwar, as is his habit, has crawled into his sister's bed to sleep beside her. He says he has fewer nightmares that way, and that she is better than his stuffed toys or his cats when it comes to protecting him from sleep-demons; Salsabil lies curled up into a ball, completely ignorant of her brother clinging to her feet. Anwar has the most serious of looks upon his little face, but at least he is safe; he shifts in his position, then seems to fall into a deeper sleep again.

"There. Not in trouble," Jaffar says, yawning. "And not wandering off."

Relieved, Yassamin blows them a kiss. "Sleep sweet, my dears; God be with you."

But it is now that Anwar shifts in his sleep again. "Mother?" he mumbles and a blissful smile spreads upon his face. 

"Mother, go away," Salsabil murmurs, but her eyes are closed; she has to be fast asleep. She smacks her mouth a little and makes a swatting motion, as if shooing away a fly. "We love you, Mother, but we are trying to sleep," she says sternly, in that matter-of-fact voice she uses whenever she lectures someone.

Yassamin has to cover her mouth for her gasp; tears spring into her eyes, of laughter and of tenderness. "Can they really hear us?" she whispers.

"You are more powerful a witch than you think you are, my sweet," Jaffar says and hugs her from behind. "God's peace and blessings upon you, little ones," Jaffar whispers and darkens the crystal once more. "But even the most powerful of wizards and witches need to sleep. Come."

"One more thing," Yassamin says as she nestles to sleep against Jaffar's chest. "Salsabil said she is _not_ marrying Fadl."

Even if Yassamin cannot see Jaffar's face, she can tell he is rolling his eyes as he now groans; Fadl always brings this up whenever he visits--more as a joke than anything else--so none of them have ever seriously considered it. It _is_ the custom for the firstborn daughter to marry an uncle, that is true; yet Jaffar is damned if he is going to let that monster--and his horse-prick!--anywhere near a child of his. 

"She is an intelligent little girl," he says, yawning again. "Wise beyond her years."

"Yes. And do you know what she said? She said she wants to _never_ marry, but to become a scholar instead, a philosopher." 

"And I will support her in that, if that is her wish. Besides, I quite enjoy watching Zainab toying with Fadl instead. It's already done him a world of good, as you've seen. But what _is_ this sudden urge for discourse that's come over you, woman? Sleep," he says and smacks her on the arse. "That's an order."

"Yes, master," Yassamin purrs, unable to resist a flirtatious tone; she swears she can feel Jaffar's prick twitching against her stomach.

"Demoness," he groans and pulls the blanket over them both, closing her mouth with a kiss.

***

END

***

**Author's Note:**

> Freely rebloggable Tumblr promo post for the fic [here.](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/145556898473/fic-autumns-fruit-bitter-and-sweet)


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